New Small Shelly Fossils (Acanthocassis and Xinlispina Gen. Nov.) from the Fortunian Stage (Early Cambrian) in Southern China

We describe new material of three‐dimensionally phosphatized small shelly fossils Acanthocassis and Xinlispina gen. nov. from the Fortunian Stage (early Cambrian) of southern Shaanxi and northern Sichuan Provinces. The new materials allow description of the delicate morphology of these skeletons, and also their skeletogenesis. Acanthocassis and Xinlispina have comparable morphological features: a main branch and radially arranged sub‐branches. They differ from each other in many details, e.g., the presence of a single central branch only in Xinlispina, and the presence of small nodes only in Acanthocassis. Acanthocassis cannot be a naked anthopolyp or hydropolyp because of the more‐or‐less stiffened cuticle and the absence of a mouth. Acanthocassis and Xinlispina differ from coeval sponge spicules and chancelloriid sclerites and rosettes of crossed pedicellariae of echinoderms, and might be cuticular ornaments of animals of unclear affinities. They occur in the first small shelly fossil assemblage zone, and could be adopted as auxiliary fossils for biostratigraphic correlation in southern China.