Biomineralized and organic metazoan tubular skeletons are by far the most common in the fossil record. However, several groups of organisms are also able to agglutinate particles to construct more rigid structures. Here we present a novel type of agglutinated tube from the austral and endemic palaeobiota of the Malvinokaffric realm (Devonian, Brazil). This fossil is characterized by an agglutinated tube made of silt-sized particles forming an unusual flanged morphology that is not known from the fossil record. Besides being able to select specific particles, these organisms probably lived partially buried and were detritus/suspension feeders. Comparisons across different modern groups show that these fossils are strongly similar to tubes made by polychaetes, specifically from the family Maldanidae. If this interpretation is correct, then an early divergence of the Sedentaria clade may have occurred before the Devonian.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2021.1143 | DOI Listing |
Sci Adv
January 2025
State Key Laboratory of Continental Dynamics, Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Early Life & Environments and Department of Geology, Northwest University, Xi'an, China.
Ecdysozoan worms (Nematoida + Scalidophora) are typified by disparate grades of neural organization reflecting a complex evolutionary history. The fossil record offers a unique opportunity to reconstruct the early character evolution of the nervous system via the exceptional preservation of extinct representatives. We focus on their nervous system as it appears in early and mid-Cambrian fossils.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNew Phytol
January 2025
Department of Plant Biology, University of Illinois, Urbana, 61801, IL, USA.
Cell Genom
January 2025
Department of Integrative Biology, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA; Department of Statistics and Data Science, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA. Electronic address:
Humans exhibit distinct characteristics compared to our primate and ancient hominin ancestors. To investigate genomic bursts in the evolution of these traits, we use two complementary approaches to examine enrichment among genome-wide association study loci spanning diseases and AI-based image-derived brain, heart, and skeletal tissue phenotypes with genomic regions reflecting four evolutionary divergence points. These regions cover epigenetic differences among humans and rhesus macaques, human accelerated regions (HARs), ancient selective sweeps, and Neanderthal-introgressed alleles.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Comp Neurol
January 2025
Department of Anatomy, Des Moines University, West Des Moines, Iowa, USA.
Paleoneurology reconstructs the evolutionary history of nervous systems through direct observations from the fossil record and comparative data from extant species. Although this approach can provide direct evidence of phylogenetic links among species, it is constrained by the availability and quality of data that can be gleaned from the fossil record. Here, we sought to translate brain component relationships in a sample of extant Carnivora to make inferences about brain structure in fossil species.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSci Rep
January 2025
Department of Geoinformatics, Faculty of Science, Palacky University, 17. listopadu 50, 77146, Olomouc, Czech Republic.
The click beetles (Elateridae) represent the major and well-known group of the polyphagan superfamily Elateroidea. Despite a relatively rich fossil record of Mesozoic Elateridae, only a few species are described from the Upper Cretaceous Burmese amber. Although Elateridae spend most of their lives as larvae, our knowledge on immature stages of this family is limited, which is especially valid for the fossils.
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