Vaveliksia
| Vaveliksia Temporal range: Ediacaran | |
|---|---|
| Artist's reconstruction of V. velikanovi | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Porifera (?) |
| Family: | †Olgunidae |
| Genus: | †Vaveliksia Fedonkin, 1983 |
| Species | |
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Vaveliksia is an extinct genus of Ediacaran Sponge-like organism with a long, tubular-shaped body and a attachment disk similar to that of Petalonamids. The Vaveliksia genus contained two species, Vaveliksia velikanovi (which honours Vyacheslav A. Velikanov, a Ukrainian geologist) as well as Vaveliksia vana (with "vana" meaning incorporeal in Latin). The two species vary in appearance to one another, with V. velikanovi having a more tubular-shaped, sack-like morphology with a crown of wrinkles on top of one of its ends as well as possessing a much more disk-like holdfast with V. vana having an appearance more similar to that of a Poriferan, with V. vana having a much more dome-shaped holdfast and a capsule-like body with no crown of wrinkles unlike V. velikanovi.