Editing Microdictyon (section)

== History ==

''Microdictyon'' [[sclerite]] plates have been recovered from around the globe, recovered from rock via acid dissolution which eats away at the rock but leaves behind compositionally distinct [[Microfossil|microfossils]]. The first of them were found in the ''[[Strenuella]]'' Limestone of [[Comley]], [[England]], in 1975.<ref name="pan2018">{{cite journal |last1=Pan |first1=Bing |last2=Topper |first2=Timothy P. |last3=Skovsted |first3=Christian B. |last4=Miao |first4=Lanyun |last5=Li |first5=Guoxiang |title=Occurrence of Microdictyon from the lower Cambrian Xinji Formation along the southern margin of the North China Platform |journal=Journal of Paleontology |date=January 2018 |volume=92 |issue=1 |pages=59–70 |doi=10.1017/jpa.2017.47 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-paleontology/article/abs/occurrence-of-microdictyon-from-the-lower-cambrian-xinji-formation-along-the-southern-margin-of-the-north-china-platform/A6B2623E8BCB41BC8F50387DE708607A |language=en |issn=0022-3360}}</ref> The genus ''Microdictyon'' was erected by Stefan Bengston, Vladimir Missarzhevsky, and S. C. Matthews in 1981, as an enigmatic net-like microfossil, based on a few isolated plates from [[Turkistan Region|South Kazakhstan]], although this description lacked a type species and proper description, so a following publication by the same authors in 1986 corrected this.<ref name="pan2018" /><ref name="demidenko2006">{{cite journal |last1=Demidenko |first1=Yu. E. |title=New Cambrian lobopods and chaetognaths of the Siberian Platform |journal=Paleontological Journal |date=1 May 2006 |volume=40 |issue=3 |pages=234–243 |doi=10.1134/S0031030106030026 |url=https://link.springer.com/article/10.1134/S0031030106030026 |language=en |issn=1555-6174}}</ref> It was unknown at the time what animal could have produced it - suggestions for its producer included [[Echinoderm|echinoderms]], [[Demosponge|sponges]],<ref name="mcmenamin1984">{{cite thesis |last=McMenamin|first=Mark |title=Paleontology and stratigraphy of Lower Cambrian and Upper Proterozoic sediments, Caborca region, northwestern Sonora, Mexico |date=1984 |degree=PhD |publisher=University of California}}</ref> and [[Radiolaria|radiolarians]].<ref name="junyuan1995" /> A number of ''Microdictyon'' species were named in the following years. The genus ''Eoconcharium'' was named in 1987 based on fossils from China, and a family was erected to contain it, the [[Eoconchariidae]]. Although it was later recognized as a junior synonym of the earlier named ''Microdictyon'', the name of the family group Eoconchariidae, which today contains ''Microdictyon'', ''[[Fusuconcharium]]'', and ''[[Quadratapora]]'', kept priority. The first complete specimens of Microdictyon were found in the [[Maotianshan Shales|Chengjiang Biota]] of Yunnan, China. The two soft bodied fossils, which showed the characteristic Microdictyon plates armouring the body of a caterpillar-like worm, were discovered in 1989 and given the name ''Microdictyon sinicum''. A more complete description based on over 70 newly discovered fossils, also from Chengjiang, was published in 1995.<ref name="junyuan1995">{{cite journal |last1=Jun-Yuan |first1=Chen |last2=Gui-Qing |first2=Zhou |last3=Ramsköld |first3=Lars |title=The Cambrian lobopodian Microdictyon sinicum |journal=Bulletin of National Museum of Natural Science |date=1995 |volume=5 |pages=1-93}}</ref> Additional soft-bodied fossils of ''Microdictyon'' were reported from the [[Kaili Biota]] in 1999, which have not been assigned to a species.<ref name="zhang1999">{{cite journal |last1=Yuanlong |first1=Zhao |last2=Maoyan |first2=Zhu |last3=Babcock |first3=Loren E. |last4=Jinliang |first4=Yuan |last5=Parsley |first5=Ronald L. |last6=Jin |first6=Peng |last7=Xinglian |first7=Yang |last8=Yue |first8=Wang |title=Kaili Biota: A Taphonomic Window on Diversification of Metazoans from the Basal Middle Cambrian: Guizhou, China |journal=Acta Geologica Sinica - English Edition |date=2005 |volume=79 |issue=6 |pages=751–765 |doi=10.1111/j.1755-6724.2005.tb00928.x |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1755-6724.2005.tb00928.x |language=en |issn=1755-6724}}</ref>