中国科学院南京地质古生物研究所机构知识库

Testate amoebae, a polyphyletic protist group inhabiting a wide variety of extant ecosystems, have evolved as far back as early Neoproterozoic. However, their fossil record is discontinuous and biased toward empty shells. Here, we report an arcellinid testate amoeba species, Cangwuella ampulliformis gen. nov., sp. nov., from a shallow-marine community in the Early Devonian of Guangxi, south-western China. With the aid of scanning electron microscopy and X-ray micro -to-mography, we find that the shell of our testate amoeba contains some acetabuli-form structures. Although such configuration does not match exactly with the known internal structures in extant testate amoebae, our fossils highlight the po-tential of exploring the ecological relationships between fossil testate amoebae and their associated organisms, and increase our knowledge on the diversity of testate amoebae in Early Devonian environments.