Vetulicolia

Vetulicolia is a group of bilaterian marine animals encompassing several extinct species from the Cambrian, and possibly Ediacaran, periods. As of 2023, the majority of scientists favor placing Vetulicolians in the stem group of the Chordata, but some continue to favor a more crownward placement as a sister group to the Tunicata. It was initially erected as a monophyletic clade with the rank of phylum in 2001, with subsequent work supporting its monophyly. However, more recent research suggests that vetulicolians may be paraphyletic and form a basal evolutionary grade of stem chordates.

The taxon name, Vetulicolia, is derived from the type genus, Vetulicola, which is a compound Latin word composed of vetuli "old" and cola "inhabitant". It was named after Vetulicola cuneata, the first species of the group described in 1987.

The vetulicolian body plan comprises two parts: a voluminous rostral (anterior) forebody, tipped with an anteriorly positioned mouth and lined with a lateral row of five round to oval-shaped openings on each side, which have been interpreted as gills (or at least orifices in the vicinity of the pharynx); and a caudal (posterior) section that primitively comprises seven body segments and functions as a tail. All vetulicolians lack preserved appendages of any kind, having no legs, feelers or even eye spots. The area where the anterior and posterior parts join is constricted in most genera. Notochord-like structures have been found in some vetulicolian fossils.

From their superficially tadpole-like forms, leaf or paddle-shaped tails, and various degrees of streamlining, it is assumed that all vetulicolians discovered to date were swimming animals that spent much, if not all, of their time living in water. Some groups, like the genus Vetulicola, were more streamlined (complete with ventral keels) than other groups, such as the tadpole-like Didazoonidae.

Because all vetulicolians had mouths which had no features for chewing or grasping, it is assumed that they were not predators. Since vetulicolians possessed gill slits, many researchers regard these organisms as planktivores. The sediment infills in the guts of their fossils have caused some to suggest that they were deposit feeders. This idea has been contested, as deposit feeders tend to have straight guts, whereas the hindguts of vetulicolians were spiral-shaped. Some researchers propose that the vetulicolians were "selective deposit-feeders" which actively swam from one region of the seafloor to another, while supplementing their nutrition with filter-feeding.

The earliest vetulicolians appear to have lived in shallow water, with the first deeper water specimens appearing in the Balang biota and possibly in the Qingjiang biota.

The phylum Vetulicolia was erected in 2001 to group the genera Vetulicola, Didazoon, and Xidazoon (later deemed a junior synonym of Pomatrum). Prior to this the class Vetulicolida had been defined in 1997 to group Vetulicola with the previously enigmatic genus Banffia due to its similar two-part construction, as well as apparent gill slits in a newly discovered specimen. Further work split Banffia into a separate class called Banffozoa, which was soon expanded to encompass similar species such as Heteromorphus. While subsequent studies supported the monophyly of Vetulicolia, it has also been noted that this would preclude vetulicolians representing a stepwise development of deuterostome characteristics, as the genus with the most such characteristics, Vetulicola, is one of the most derived in the group.

A 2024 phylogenetic analysis by Mussini and colleagues found vetulicolians to be a paraphyletic group of stem-chordates, lying outside a clade formed by Yunnanozoon, Cathaymyrus, Pikaia and crown-chordates. This is in part due to the Cambroernida, which are basal stem-ambulacrarians, being discovered to share with vetulicolians a lack of crown-group chordate characters such as a post-anal tail, despite such characteristics previously being believed to be present in the last common ancestor of deuterostomes. However, ascidian larvae have been noted to have endoderm extending to the terminal end, which could suggest that the ancestral tunicate also had a terminal anus.