Like other soft-bodied organisms, ctenophores (comb jellies) produce fossils only under exceptional taphonomic conditions. Here, we present the first record of a Late Devonian ctenophore from the Escuminac Formation from Miguasha in eastern Canada. Based on the 18-fold symmetry of this disc-shaped fossil, we assign it to the total-group Ctenophora. Our phylogenetic analyses suggest that the new taxon Daihuoides jakobvintheri gen. et sp. nov. falls near Cambrian stem ctenophores such as 'dinomischids' and 'scleroctenophorans'. Accordingly, Daihuoides is a Lazarus-taxon, which post-dates its older relatives by over 140 million years, and overlaps temporally with modern ctenophores, whose oldest representatives are known from the Early Devonian. Our analyses also indicate that the fossil record of ctenophores does not provide strong evidence for or against the phylogenomic hypothesis that ctenophores are sister to all other metazoans.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-98362-5 | DOI Listing |
Nat Geosci
January 2025
Department of Earth Sciences 'Ardito Desio', Università degli Studi di Milano, Milan, Italy.
Atmospheric CO is thought to play a fundamental role in Earth's climate regulation. Yet, for much of Earth's geological past, atmospheric CO has been poorly constrained, hindering our understanding of transitions between cool and warm climates. Beginning ~370 million years ago in the Late Devonian and ending ~260 million years ago in the Permian, the Late Palaeozoic Ice Age was the last major glaciation preceding the current Late Cenozoic Ice Age and possibly the most intense glaciation witnessed by complex lifeforms.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn this study, we performed a comparative analysis based on a total of 255 spider mitogenomes and four outgroups, of which the mitogenomes of 39 species were assembled de novo, to explore the phylogenetic relationships and the adaptive evolution of mitogenomes. Results showed that had the longest mitochondrial length and the most pronounced codon preference to be UUA, followed by CCU. Codon usage frequencies were similar between families and codon usage in the mitogenome of spiders was mainly influenced by natural selection pressures rather than G/C mutation bias.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Physiol
January 2025
Department of Ophthalmology, Stein Eye Institute, UCLA School of Medicine, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
Bipolar cells are vertebrate retinal interneurons conveying signals from rod and cone photoreceptors to amacrine and ganglion cells. Bipolar cells are found in all vertebrates and have many structural and molecular affinities with photoreceptors; they probably appeared very early during vertebrate evolution in conjunction with rod and cone progenitors. There are two types of bipolar cells, responding to central illumination with depolarization (ON) or hyperpolarization (OFF).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPeerJ
December 2024
Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
New discoveries of the late Silurian fossil fish (Eugaleaspidae, Eugaleaspiformes, Galeaspida), sp. nov. and sp.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFiScience
December 2024
State Key Laboratory of Oil and Gas Reservoir Geology and Exploitation, Chengdu University of Technology, Chengdu 610059, Sichuan, China.
To reveal the stratigraphic age of the Shiqianfeng Formation in the eastern continental basin of the North China Craton and the provenance of its sediments from the Late Carboniferous to the Early Triassic, six sandstone samples from the Puyang area were selected for zircon U-Pb dating. The result show that the Shiqianfeng Formation in the eastern North China Craton belongs to the Early Triassic. According to the age clusters of six samples, considering the regional geological setting and the distribution of zircon ages in the potential provenance area, it can be inferred that the Inner Mongolia Paleo-uplift provided continuous provenance supply for the study area during the Late Carboniferous-Early Triassic.
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