Taxon Description (Wikipedia)
Xenoturbella is a genus of bilaterian animals; it contains two marine worm-like species. The first known species (
Xenoturbella bocki) was discovered in 1915 by Sixten Bock but the first published description was only in 1949 by Einar Westblad
[ Westblad (1949) Arkiv. Zoologi. 1:3-29] Its taxonomic position has been considered enigmatic since its discovery but a 2003 DNA study has positioned it as a primitive deuterostome outside the established phyla (Bourlat
et al., 2003). Earlier it was suspected to be closely related to molluscs (Noren & Jondelius, 1997), but it turned out that the DNA test was contaminated with DNA from molluscs which it may have eaten (Bourlat
et al., 2003; Israelsson & Budd, 2006). The earlier results were recently...
full article at Wikipedia
