#ernietta

Species: E. plateauensis

Age and Location: Ediacaran of Namibia

Classification: ?Eukarya incertae sedis: Erniettomorpha

Ernietta is an iconic Ediacaran organism, and like most such organisms, its phylogenetic affinities are totally unknown, although like many other Ediacaran organisms, it may well be a stem-group animal. All we know for sure was that it was multicellular, but not apparently similar to any living multicellular organisms. A trait that defines the ‘erniettomorph’ body plan is a body  The body of Ernietta was composed of essentially undifferentiated tubes of tough organic material. It appears to have lived mostly buried in the sand, with two fan-like fronds projecting into the water. Members of the genus seem to have lived together in large groups, perhaps as a consequence of their mode of reproduction.

Unlike all extant macroscopic organisms and like many other Ediacaran organisms, Ernietta probably were osmotrophic--that is, they fed exclusively by passively absorbing nutrients from the water around them. This was possible as a result of its being essentially a sediment-filled bag, so that most of its body volume was actually just sand. The tubes that comprised the fan-like structures probably primarily served in osmotrophy while the others were structural and served to anchor the organism, however, there is no clear morphological distinction between different body regions. 

Sources:

Ivantsov AY., Narbonne GM., Trusler PW., Greentree C., Vickers-Rich P. 2015. Elucidating Ernietta: new insights from exceptional specimens in the Ediacaran of Namibia. Lethaia.