Lukas VFN 🇪🇺Nov 15, 2022

#Welsh 'weird wonder' #fossils add piece to puzzle of #arthropod #evolution https://phys.org/news/2022-11-welsh-weird-fossils-piece-puzzle.html

#Ordovician #opabiniid-like animals and the role of the #proboscis in #euarthropod head evolution https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-34204-w

A proboscis—thought to represent a fused pair of head appendages—was not unique to #opabiniids, but instead was present in the common ancestor of #radiodonts and modern #arthropods, and through evolutionary time may have reduced to become the labrum of modern arthropods.

Welsh 'weird wonder' fossils add piece to puzzle of arthropod evolution

The most famous fossils from the Cambrian explosion of animal life over half a billion years ago are very unlike their modern counterparts. These "weird wonders," such as the five-eyed Opabinia with its distinctive frontal proboscis, and the fearsome apex predator Anomalocaris with its radial mouthparts and spiny feeding appendages, have become icons in popular culture.

Jo WolfeNov 15, 2022

😍Welcome Mieridduryn bonniae!😍

You know the Cambrian weird wonders Opabinia and Utaurora? With Steve Pates, Joe Botting and Lucy Muir (all not on this app, me as senior author), we found ANOTHER similar fossil but this one is from 40 million years later in the Ordovician 🤯 and the paper is out today in Nature Communications: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-34204-w
artwork below by @franzanth
#Ordovician #paleontology #fossil #invertebrates #arthropods #opabiniid

Ordovician opabiniid-like animals and the role of the proboscis in euarthropod head evolution - Nature Communications

Here, the authors describe two opabiniid-like euarthropods with anterior proboscises from the Middle Ordovician Castle Bank Biota, Wales, UK. Phylogenetic analysis suggests that these specimens may be sister to radiodonts and deuteropods.

Nature