(Press-News.org) A new study, led by palaeontologists at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) is helping resolve the evolution and ecology of Odaraia, a taco-shaped marine animal that lived during the Cambrian period. Fossils collected by ROM reveal Odaraia had mandibles. Palaeontologists are finally able to place it as belonging to the mandibulates, ending its long enigmatic classification among the arthropods since it was first discovered in the Burgess Shale over 100 years ago and revealing more about early evolution and diversification. The study The Cambrian Odaraia alata and the colonization of nektonic suspension-feeding niches by early mandibulates was published in the journal Proceedings B.
The study authors were able to identify a pair of large appendages with grasping jagged edges near its mouth, clearly indicative of mandibles which are one of the key and distinctive features of the mandibulate group of animals. This suggests that Odaraia was one of the earliest known members of this group. The researchers made another stunning discovery, a detailed analysis of its more than 30 pairs of legs, found an intricate system of small and large spines. According to the authors, these spines could intertwine, capturing smaller prey as though a fishing net, suggesting how some of these first mandibulates left the sea floor and explored the water column, setting the seeds for their future ecological success.
“The head shield of Odaraia envelops practically half of its body including its legs, almost as if it were encased in a tube. Previous researchers had suggested this shape would have allowed Odaraia to gather its prey, but the capturing mechanism had eluded us, until now,” says Alejandro Izquierdo-López, lead author, who was based at ROM during this work as a PhD student at the University of Toronto. “Odaraia had been beautifully described in the 1980s, but given the limited number of fossils at that time and its bizarre shape, two important questions had remained unanswered: is it really a mandibulate? And what was it feeding on?”
At almost 20 cm in size, the authors explain that early mandibulates like Odaraia were part of a community of large animals that could have been able to migrate from the marine bottom-dwelling ecosystems characteristic of the Cambrian period to the upper layers of the water column. These types of communities could have enriched the water column and facilitated a transition towards more complex ecosystems.
Cambrian fossils record the major divergence of animal groups originating over 500 million years ago. This period saw the evolution of innumerable innovations, such as eyes, legs or shells, and the first diversification of many animal groups, including the mandibulates, one of the major groups of arthropods (animals with jointed limbs).
Mandibulates are an example of evolutionary success, representing over half of all current species on Earth. Today, mandibulates are everywhere: from sea-dwelling crabs to centipedes lurking in the undergrowth or bees flying across meadows, but their beginnings were more humble. During the Cambrian period, the first mandibulates were marine animals, most bearing distinct head shields or carapaces.
“The Burgess Shale has been a treasure trove of paleontological information,” says Jean-Bernard Caron, Richard Ivey Curator at the Royal Ontario Museum, and co-author of the study. “Thanks to the work we have been doing at the ROM on amazing fossil animals such as Tokummia and Waptia, we already know a substantial amount about the early evolution of mandibulates. However, some other species had remained quite enigmatic, like Odaraia.”
The Royal Ontario Museum holds the largest collections of Cambrian fossils from the world-renowned Burgess Shale of British Columbia. Burgess Shale fossils are exceptional, as they preserve structures, animals and ecosystems that under normal conditions would have decayed and completely disappeared from the fossil record. Mandibulates, though, are generally rare in the fossil record. Most fossils preserve only the hard parts of animals, such as skeletons or the mineralized cuticles of the well-known trilobites, structures that mandibulates lack.
For over forty years Odaraia has been one of the most iconic animals of the Burgess Shale, with its distinctive taco-shaped carapace, its large head and eyes, and a tail that resembles a submarine's keel. The public can view specimens of Odaraia on display at the Willner Madge Gallery, Dawn of Life at the Royal Ontario Museum.
END
Taco-shaped arthropod from Royal Ontario Museum’s Burgess Shale fossils gives new insights into the history of the first mandibulates
Exceptional fossils show how mandibulates were trapping prey in marine ecosystems 500 million years ago
2024-07-24
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Butterflies accumulate enough static electricity to attract pollen without contact, new research finds
2024-07-24
Butterflies and moths collect so much static electricity whilst in flight, that pollen grains from flowers can be pulled by static electricity across air gaps of several millimetres or centimetres.
The finding, published today in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface, suggests that this likely increases their efficiency and effectiveness as pollinators.
The University of Bristol team also observed that the amount of static electricity carried by butterflies and moths varies between different species, and that these variations correlate with differences in their ecology, such as whether they visit flowers, are ...
Eyes for Love: Searching for light and a mate in the deep, dark sea, male dragonfishes grow larger eyes than the females they seek
2024-07-24
Chestnut Hill, Mass (07/24/2024) – A small but ferocious predator, the male dragonfish will apparently do anything for love. Or at least to find a mate.
A new study by researchers at Boston College found the eyes of the male dragonfish grow larger for mate-seeking purposes, making the dragonfish an anomaly in vertebrate evolution, the team reported today in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters.
Like many creatures that inhabit the dark depths of the sea, dragonfishes survive thanks to numerous ...
PNNL scientists tap nation’s fastest computers to explore critical science questions
2024-07-24
RICHLAND, Wash.—Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have been awarded more than 3 million node hours on the nation’s most powerful computers to explore questions around pathogens, climate and energy-efficient microelectronics.
Access to the nation’s supercomputers, granted to Margaret Cheung, Daniel Mejia Rodriguez and Po-Lun Ma, is a coveted prize among scientists. The node hours represent an investment of several million dollars in computing time awarded to PNNL scientists to explore important science questions.
The awards are among 44 projects awarded through ...
Peri-operative care of transgender and gender-diverse individuals: new guidance for clinicians and departments published
2024-07-24
New guidance on peri-operative care of transgender and gender-diverse individuals is today published in Anaesthesia (the journal of the Association of Anaesthetists) to guide best practice to ensure the safety and dignity of transgender and gender-diverse people in the peri-operative period. The guidance has been produced by a working group of experts including Dr Stuart Edwardson, Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK, and Dr Luke Flower, Victor Philip Dahdaleh Heart and Lung Research Institute, Cambridge, UK, and colleagues.
The number of people openly identifying ...
Clinical psychologist’s book addresses largely ignored problem: social anxiety
2024-07-23
RIVERISDE, Calif. -- We all have some social anxiety. The nervousness we might feel before giving a speech is one example. Some people, however, have more social anxiety than others, and limit their social engagement due to excessive chronic fears of being embarrassed or humiliated. Although such social anxiety is common in both adolescents and adults, it is rarely diagnosed and treated.
In a new book titled “Social Anxiety: Hidden Fears and Shame in Teens and Adults,” Thomas E. Brown, a clinical professor of psychiatry and neuroscience in the University of California, Riverside's School of Medicine , explains ...
Researchers leveraging AI to train (robotic) dogs to respond to their masters
2024-07-23
An international collaboration seeks to innovate the future of how a mechanical man’s best friend interacts with its owner, using a combination of AI and edge computing called edge intelligence.
The project is sponsored through a one-year seed grant from the Institute for Future Technologies (IFT), a partnership between New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU).
Assistant Professor Kasthuri Jayarajah in NJIT’s Ying Wu College of Computing is researching how to design a socially assistive model ...
Drawing water from dry air
2024-07-23
Earth’s atmosphere holds an ocean of water, enough liquid to fill Utah’s Great Salt Lake 800 times.
Extracting some of that moisture is seen as a potential way to provide clean drinking water to billions of people globally who face chronic shortages.
Existing technologies for atmospheric water harvesting (AWH) are saddled with numerous downsides associated with size, cost and efficiency. But new research from University of Utah engineering researchers has yielded insights that could improve efficiencies and bring the world one step closer to tapping the air as a culinary water source in arid places.
The study unveils the first-of-its-kind ...
Combining trapped atoms and photonics for new quantum devices
2024-07-23
Quantum information systems offer faster, more powerful computing methods than standard computers to help solve many of the world’s toughest problems. Yet fulfilling this ultimate promise will require bigger and more interconnected quantum computers than scientists have yet built. Scaling quantum systems up to larger sizes, and connecting multiple systems, has proved challenging.
Now, researchers at the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME) have discovered how to combine two powerful technologies—trapped atom arrays and photonic devices—to ...
A new way to make element 116 opens the door to heavier atoms
2024-07-23
Scientists at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) are credited in the discovery of 16 of the 118 known elements. Now they’ve completed the crucial first step to potentially create yet another: element 120.
Today, an international team of researchers led by Berkeley Lab’s Heavy Element Group announced that they have made known superheavy element 116 using a titanium beam, a breakthrough that is a key stepping stone towards making element 120. The result was presented today at the Nuclear Structure 2024 conference; the science paper will be posted on the online repository ...
New genetic tool could identify drug targets for diseases associated with metabolic dysfunction
2024-07-23
There’s a glaring gap in our knowledge of cell metabolism: in many cases, we still don’t know exactly how nutrients are transported into the cell. Without that understanding, it’s extremely difficult, if not impossible, to develop treatments for the many diseases linked to the protein transporters that drive metabolism. Now, a new study in Nature Genetics presents a tool to map these metabolic gene functions more precisely. The platform, dubbed GeneMAP, has already identified one key gene-metabolite association at the heart of mitochondrial metabolism.
GeneMAP was developed in the laboratory of Kivanç Birsoy, ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
Insulin resistance is linked to over 30 diseases – and to early death in women, study of people in the UK finds
Innovative semaglutide hydrogel could reduce diabetes shots to once a month
Weight loss could reduce the risk of severe infections in people with diabetes, UK research suggests
Long-term exposure to air pollution and a lack of green space increases the risk of hospitalization for respiratory conditions
Better cardiovascular health in early pregnancy may offset high genetic risk
Artificial intelligence method transforms gene mutation prediction in lung cancer: DeepGEM data releases at IASLC 2024 World Conference on Lung Cancer
Antibody–drug conjugate I-DXd shows clinically meaningful response in patients with extensive-stage small cell lung cancer
IASLC Global Survey on biomarker testing reveals progress and persistent barriers in lung cancer biomarker testing
Research shows pathway to developing predictive biomarkers for immune checkpoint inhibitors
Just how dangerous is Great Salt Lake dust? New research looks for clues
Maroulas appointed Associate Vice Chancellor, Director of AI Tennessee
New chickadee research finds cognitive skills impact lifespan
Cognitive behavioral therapy enhances brain circuits to relieve depression
Terasaki Institute awarded $2.3 Million grant from NIH for organ transplantation research using organs-on-a-chip technology
Atoms on the edge
Postdoc takes multipronged approach to muon detection
Mathematical proof: Five satellites needed for precise navigation
Scalable, multi-functional device lays groundwork for advanced quantum applications
Falling for financial scams? It may signal early Alzheimer’s disease
Integrating MRI and OCT for new insights into brain microstructure
Designing a normative neuroimaging library to support diagnosis of traumatic brain injury
Department of Energy announces $68 million in funding for artificial intelligence for scientific research
DOE, ORNL announce opportunity to define future of high-performance computing
Molecular simulations, supercomputing lead to energy-saving biomaterials breakthrough
Low-impact yoga and exercise found to help older women manage urinary incontinence
Genetic studies reveal new insights into cognitive impairment in schizophrenia
Researcher develops technology to provide cleaner energy and cleaner water
Expect the unexpected: nanoscale silver unveils intrinsic self-healing abilities
nTIDE September 2024 Jobs Report: Gains in employment for people with disabilities appear to level off after reducing gaps with non-disabled workers
Wiley enhances NMR Spectral Library Collection with extensive new databases
[Press-News.org] Taco-shaped arthropod from Royal Ontario Museum’s Burgess Shale fossils gives new insights into the history of the first mandibulatesExceptional fossils show how mandibulates were trapping prey in marine ecosystems 500 million years ago