Helmetia
Sign in to saveHelmetia is an extinct genus of arthropods from the middle Cambrian (Wuliuan). Fossils of the type species Helmetia expansa have been found in the Burgess Shale of Canada. It is characterized by a pair of spines in front of its head. It is classified under Conciliterga, a group of trilobitomorph artiopod.
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- Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Volume 85, Number 3, Plate 23.jpg
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Encyclopedic overview
7 sectionsContents
- Discovery
- Taxonomy
- Morphology
- Paleoecology
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Helmetia is an extinct genus of arthropods from the middle Cambrian (Wuliuan). Fossils of the type species Helmetia expansa have been found in the Burgess Shale of Canada. It is characterized by a pair of spines in front of its head. It is classified under Conciliterga, a group of trilobitomorph artiopod.
== Discovery == Fossils of Helmetia are both rare and poorly known; the monotypic genus was described by Charles Doolittle Walcott in 1918 and has not been reexamined. Despite additional specimens had been discovered between 1975 and 1998, only the holotype was briefly mentioned in other subjects and the genus has been included in a number of cladistic analyses since 1990s. It was redescribed in 2025, revealing some details on its previously poorly known anatomy.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Helmetia” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.