9
views
0
recommends
+1 Recommend
0 collections
    0
    shares
      • Record: found
      • Abstract: found
      • Article: found
      Is Open Access

      Injuries and molting interference in a trilobite from the Cambrian (Furongian) of South China

      research-article
      PeerJ
      PeerJ Inc.
      Sub-lethal attack, Shergoldia, Predator-prey interactions, Sandu formation, Guangxi

      Read this article at

      Bookmark
          There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

          Abstract

          An injured Shergoldia laevigata Zhu, Hughes & Peng, 2007 (Trilobita, Asaphida) was collected from the Furongian of Guangxi, South China. The injuries occurred in the left thoracic pleurae possessing two marked V-shaped gaps. It led to substantial transverse shortening of the left pleural segments, with barely perceptible traces of healing. This malformation is interpreted as a sub-lethal attack from an unknown predator. The morphology of injuries and the spatial and temporal distribution of predators indicated that the predatory structure might have been the spines on the ganathobase or ganathobase-like structure of a larger arthropod. There were overlapped segments located in the front of the injuries, and slightly dislocated thoracic segments on the left part of the thorax, suggesting that the trilobite had experienced difficulties during molting. The freshly molted trilobite had dragged forward the old exuvia causing the irregular arrangement of segments. This unusual trilobite specimen indicates that the injuries interfered with molting.

          Related collections

          Most cited references68

          • Record: found
          • Abstract: not found
          • Article: not found

          The Largest Cambrian Animal, Anomalocaris, Burgess Shale, British Columbia

            Bookmark
            • Record: found
            • Abstract: found
            • Article: not found

            Anomalocaridid trunk limb homology revealed by a giant filter-feeder with paired flaps.

            Exceptionally preserved fossils from the Palaeozoic era provide crucial insights into arthropod evolution, with recent discoveries bringing phylogeny and character homology into sharp focus. Integral to such studies are anomalocaridids, a clade of stem arthropods whose remarkable morphology illuminates early arthropod relationships and Cambrian ecology. Although recent work has focused on the anomalocaridid head, the nature of their trunk has been debated widely. Here we describe new anomalocaridid specimens from the Early Ordovician Fezouata Biota of Morocco, which not only show well-preserved head appendages providing key ecological data, but also elucidate the nature of anomalocaridid trunk flaps, resolving their homology with arthropod trunk limbs. The new material shows that each trunk segment bears a separate dorsal and ventral pair of flaps, with a series of setal blades attached at the base of the dorsal flaps. Comparisons with other stem lineage arthropods indicate that anomalocaridid ventral flaps are homologous with lobopodous walking limbs and the endopod of the euarthropod biramous limb, whereas the dorsal flaps and associated setal blades are homologous with the flaps of gilled lobopodians (for example, Kerygmachela kierkegaardi, Pambdelurion whittingtoni) and exites of the 'Cambrian biramous limb'. This evidence shows that anomalocaridids represent a stage before the fusion of exite and endopod into the 'Cambrian biramous limb', confirming their basal placement in the euarthropod stem, rather than in the arthropod crown or with cycloneuralian worms. Unlike other anomalocaridids, the Fezouata taxon combines head appendages convergently adapted for filter-feeding with an unprecedented body length exceeding 2 m, indicating a new direction in the feeding ecology of the clade. The evolution of giant filter-feeding anomalocaridids may reflect the establishment of highly developed planktic ecosystems during the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event.
              Bookmark
              • Record: found
              • Abstract: not found
              • Article: not found

              Anomalocaris predation on nonmineralized and mineralized trilobites

                Bookmark

                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Journal
                PeerJ
                PeerJ
                peerj
                peerj
                PeerJ
                PeerJ Inc. (San Diego, USA )
                2167-8359
                7 April 2021
                2021
                : 9
                : e11201
                Affiliations
                [-1] State Key Laboratory of Biogeology and Environmental Geology, China University of Geosciences , Wuhan, China
                Article
                11201
                10.7717/peerj.11201
                8035893
                33868827
                577dd478-c962-4381-8183-60326cdd9e2f
                ©2021 Zong

                This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.

                History
                : 24 November 2020
                : 11 March 2021
                Funding
                Funded by: National Natural Science Foundation of China
                Award ID: 41702006
                Award ID: 42072041
                Funded by: Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, China University of Geosciences (Wuhan)
                Award ID: G1323520262
                This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41702006, 42072041) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, China University of Geosciences (Wuhan) (G1323520262). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
                Categories
                Animal Behavior
                Evolutionary Studies
                Paleontology

                sub-lethal attack,shergoldia,predator-prey interactions,sandu formation,guangxi

                Comments

                Comment on this article