A late surviving xenopod (Arthropoda) from the Ordovican Period, Wales

The Middle Ordovician Llanfallteg Formation has yielded remains of soft-bodied organisms previously known only from Cambrian Burgess Shale-type deposits. A new arthropod Etania howellsorum gen. et sp. nov. is described here, characterized by a semi-circular cephalon, clusters of spinose endites on the endopod and exopods with ovoid distal lobes. These characters are consistent with xenopod affinities, a clade otherwise known exclusively from the...