11
views
0
recommends
+1 Recommend
0 collections
    0
    shares
      • Record: found
      • Abstract: found
      • Article: not found

      A three-dimensionally preserved fossil polychaete worm from the Silurian of Herefordshire, England.

      1 , , ,
      Proceedings. Biological sciences
      The Royal Society

      Read this article at

      ScienceOpenPublisherPMC
      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

          Polychaete body fossils are rare, and are almost invariably compressed and too poorly preserved for meaningful comparison with extant forms. We here describe Kenostrychus clementsi gen. et sp. nov. from the Silurian Herefordshire Konservat-Lagerstätte of England, in which three-dimensional external morphology is preserved with a fidelity unprecedented among fossil polychaetes. The fossils, which are preserved in calcite, were serially ground and photographed at 30 microm intervals to produce computer-generated reconstructions of the original external surface. The new genus has a generalized polychaete morphology with large biramous parapodia, unspecialized anterior segments and a small prostomium with median and lateral antennae and ventral prostomial palps. Cirriform branchiae arise from the ventral surface of each notopodium, and may be homologous with the inter-ramal branchiae of the extant nephtyids. Through cladistic analysis, Kenostrychus is interpreted as a member of a stem group of either the Phyllodocida or the Aciculata (Phyllodocida + Eunicida). Direct comparison with other fossil forms is difficult, but hints that inter-ramal respiratory structures may be primitive within the Phyllodocida and/or the Aciculata.

          Related collections

          Author and article information

          Journal
          Proc. Biol. Sci.
          Proceedings. Biological sciences
          The Royal Society
          0962-8452
          0962-8452
          Nov 22 2001
          : 268
          : 1483
          Affiliations
          [1 ] Department of Earth Sciences, University of Oxford, Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PR, UK.
          Article
          10.1098/rspb.2001.1788
          1088887
          11703876
          b3fa1ae1-b3df-4026-b12f-69e04dec9530
          History

          Comments

          Comment on this article