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Body fossils of large worms, however, have so far not been found. Here, we describe a large, soft-bodied, worm-like organism, <jats:italic>Vittatusivermis annularius<\/jats:italic> gen. et sp. nov. from the lowest Cambrian of South China, which is constrained to the Fortunian Age (541\u2013529\u2009Ma) of the Cambrian Period. The elongate body of <jats:italic>Vittatusivermis<\/jats:italic> was large enough to have supported organ systems and a fluid skeleton that facilitated peristaltic locomotion, thus allowing for more complex patterns of movement than those of flatworms. Its occurrence on the same bedding surface as trace fossils suggests that <jats:italic>Vittatusivermis<\/jats:italic> might have produced epichnial trails and shallow burrows on and within sediments. Therefore, <jats:italic>Vittatusivermis<\/jats:italic> is likely to have been one of the long expected producers of trace fossils in the earliest Cambrian.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1038\/s41598-017-15089-y","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2017,10,31]],"date-time":"2017-10-31T09:38:23Z","timestamp":1509442703000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/springer_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":13,"title":["Centimeter-wide worm-like fossils from the lowest Cambrian of South China"],"prefix":"10.1038","volume":"7","author":[{"given":"Xingliang","family":"Zhang","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Wei","family":"Liu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Yukio","family":"Isozaki","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Tomohiko","family":"Sato","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"297","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2017,11,6]]},"reference":[{"key":"15089_CR1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"1901","DOI":"10.1126\/science.1206375","volume":"334","author":"DH Erwin","year":"2011","unstructured":"Erwin, D. 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