Zhongxiniscus

Zhongxiniscus intermedius was a primitive chordate from the Chengjiang Lagerstätte, roughly 530-million years ago. It is thought, due to the presence of at least a dorsal fin and the shape of the myomeres (to a degree) in the fossil, to represent a "missing link" between animals like Cathaymyrus (a primitive chordate like Pikaia) and forms like Haikouichthys and Myllokunmingia.

Looking at the photograph of the fossil and the camera lucida drawing of it in Luo et al.'s paper New Early Cambrian Chordates from Haikou, Kunming, it seems the animal was badly preserved; it was already well-rotted before it was fossilized. Because of that, I took some artistic liberties here: I reconstruct it with a fin that runs dorsally and ventrally like in Haikouichthys, with eyes attached to a bilobed head, and with "proto-vertebrae" straddling the notochord.