Kimberella – an early mollusc?

Known initially from the Ediacara Hills in South Australia, where the first specimens were found in the 1940s, fossils of this animal have since been discovered near the White Sea in northern Russia. Kimberella is the first known bilatarian – an animal with a front end and a back end – but beyond that it’s not clear what sort of animal it was. It has some features similar to a group of molluscs called monoplacophorans. It lived on the sea floor. Its shell was probably stiff, yet flexible, and was not mineralised.