Maotianshan Shales fossil record. Phylum Porifera (sponges; 15 species) and Priapulida (16 species) are also well represented. Other phyla represented are Brachiopoda, Chaetognatha, Cnidaria, Ctenophora, Echinodermata, Hyolitha, Nematomorpha, Phoronida, and Chordata. Possible molluscs include "Wiwaxia" and "Nectocaris". About one in eight animals are problematic forms of uncertain affinity, some of which may have been evolutionary experiments that survived for only a brief period as benthic environments rapidly changed in the Cambrian. Chengjiang is the richest source of the lobopodia, a group including many early panarthropods, with six genera represented: "Luolishania", "Paucipodia", "Cardiodictyon"," Hallucigenia" (also known from the Burgess Shale), "Microdictyon", and "Onychodictyon".
Nerve net with nerve nets lack a true brain, they have the ability to display complex movements and behaviors. The presence of a nerve net allows an organism belonging to the aforementioned phyla of Cnidaria, Ctenophora, and Echinodermata to have increased fitness as a result of being able to respond to their environment. Developmental neurogenesis of nerve nets is conserved between phyla and has been mainly studied in cnidaria, especially in the model organism Hydra. The following discusses the development of the nerve net in Cnidaria, but the same mechanism for the differentiation of nervous tissue is seen in Ctenophora and Echinodermata.