ABSTRACT

The fossils of the Soom Shale first rose to fame in 1993 with the report of eyes in a conodont animal. It was only in 1983 that conodonts – usually small, phosphatic tooth-rows, sometimes found arranged in basket-like structures – were found in association with soft tissues, which later (1993) were shown to belong to chordates. It was the evidence of cartilage supporting large eyes in the Soom Shale conodont Promissum pulchrum that helped to determine the chordate nature of conodonts. Following this discovery, a concerted effort was made to find more specimens in the Soom Shale. This is a daunting task because fossils are rare in the shale, but dedicated hunting by Dick Aldridge and Sarah Gabbott, of Leicester University, UK, and Johannes Theron, of the Geological Survey of South Africa, has since unearthed a wide variety of animals and plants. Further specimens of Promissum turned up, which added more information about the morphology of conodonts and, in 1995, a specimen with muscle tissue was reported. Other exciting animals from the Soom Shale include the eurypterid (‘sea scorpion’) Onychopterella, which also shows details of musculature as well as the gut, enigmatic

naraoiids, and orthocone cephalopods (relatives of squids and ammonites with straight, conical shells).