CT images of the fossil animal Kylinxia zhangi from southern China. Fossils of lots of kinds of marine animals initially appeared in rocks from about half a billion years ago and signal a time when complex environments were developing in the worlds oceans. One of the essential localities for such fossils is the area around the town of Chengjiang in southern China, where the fossils in this study were collected by the Chinese group. The fossils were recuperated from the Cambrian Chengjiang biota of Chinas Yunnan Province, from which over 250 species of remarkably preserved fossil organisms have actually been explained.
Lead author of the study Robert OFlynn, a Ph.D. trainee at the University of Leicester School of Geography, Geology and the Environment, stated: “The conservation of the fossil animal is remarkable.
CT images of the fossil animal Kylinxia zhangi from southern China. The animal is the size of a big shrimp, with its front end to the.
When complex communities were establishing in the worlds oceans, fossils of numerous kinds of marine animals first appeared in rocks from about half a billion years earlier and signify a time. One of the essential areas for such fossils is the area around the town of Chengjiang in southern China, where the fossils in this research study were gathered by the Chinese group. The fossils were recovered from the Cambrian Chengjiang biota of Chinas Yunnan Province, from which over 250 types of remarkably maintained fossil organisms have been explained.
The brand-new discover is necessary for understanding the history of arthropods. These are animals whose bodies are divided into sections, the majority of which bear a paired of jointed limbs, like crabs, spiders, lobsters, and pests.
CT images of the fossil animal Kylinxia zhangi from southern China. This image shows the big frontal limbs extended. Credit: Courtesy of Professor Yu Liu, Yunnan University
Although there are lots of arthropods in the fossil record– most notoriously the trilobites– the large bulk just maintain their tough skeletons. Because the new Chinese product is preserved almost completely, the group was able to image the head of Kylinxia, identifying 6 segments: the front one bearing eyes, the 2nd with a set of big grasping limbs, and the other four each bearing a pair of jointed limbs.
Lead author of the study Robert OFlynn, a Ph.D. student at the University of Leicester School of Geography, Geology and the Environment, said: “The preservation of the fossil animal is incredible. After CT-scanning we can digitally turn it around and literally gaze into the face of something that lived over 500 million years earlier. As we spun the animal around, we could see that its head has 6 segments, just as in numerous living arthropods.”
Micro-CT design of Kylinxia revealing features in the head. Credit: Courtesy of Professor Yu Liu, YKLP
Professor Mark Williams, Roberts primary supervisor at the University of Leicester, stated: “Kylinxia, and the Chengjiang biota whence it came, are crucial to constructing our understanding of early euarthropod advancement. I like to think that comparable discoveries will continue to be made by Robert.”
Professor Yu Liu from the Yunnan Key Laboratory for Palaeobiology said: “Robert and I were examining the micro-CT data as part of his doctoral thesis in the hope of refining and remedying previous interpretation of head structures in this genus, Kylinxia. Astonishingly, we found that its head is made up of 6 sectors, as in, e.g., pests.”
Dr Greg Edgecombe from the Natural History Museum included: “Most of our theories on how the head of arthropods evolved were based on these early-branching species having less sections than living species. Finding 2 previously undiscovered sets of legs in Kylinxia recommends that living arthropods acquired a six-segmented head from a forefather at least 518 million years ago.”
Recommendation: “The early Cambrian Kylinxia zhangi and advancement of the arthropod head” by Robert J. OFlynn, Yu Liu, Xianguang Hou, Huijuan Mai, Mengxiao Yu, Songling Zhuang, Mark Williams, Jin Guo and Gregory D. Edgecombe, 28 August 2023, Current Biology.DOI: 10.1016/ j.cub.2023.08.022.
The study was moneyed by the Science Foundation of Yunnan Province.
Creative reconstruction of Kylinxia. Credit: X. Wang
Researchers from the University of Leicester and the Yunnan Key Laboratory for Palaeobiology employed sophisticated scanning technology to recreate a fossil beast that lived half a billion years earlier.
A collaborative group including scientists from the University of Leicester, Yunnan Key Laboratory for Palaeobiology, Yunnan Universitys Institute of Palaeontology, the Chengjiang Fossil Museum, and Londons Natural History Museum have re-examined a distinct fossil animal found in almost 520-million-year-old rocks. This reevaluation helps fill a knowledge space in the evolutionary history of animals called arthropods.
The animal, which has the taxonomic name Kylinxia, was imaged using a CT scanner which revealed its soft anatomy buried in the rock. The size of a large shrimp, its surprising functions consist of 3 eyes on the head and a pair of terrifying limbs probably utilized to capture victim.
The study was recently published in the journal Current Biology.
