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An Early Cambrian tunicate from China

Nature volume 411, pages 472–473 (2001)Cite this article

Abstract

Like the Burgess Shales of Canada, the Chengjiang Lagerstätte from the Lower Cambrian of China is renowned for the detailed preservation as fossils of delicate, soft-bodied creatures1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9, providing an insight into the Cambrian explosion. The fossils of possible hemichordate chordates5,6,7 and vertebrates9 have attracted particular attention. Tunicates, or urochordates, comprise the most basal chordate clade10, and details of their evolution could be important in understanding the sequence of character acquisition that led to the emergence of chordates and vertebrates11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18. However, definitive fossils of tunicates from the Cambrian are scarce or debatable4,9,19,20,21,22,23,24. Here we report a probable tunicate Cheungkongella ancestralis from the Chengjiang fauna. It resembles the extant ascidian tunicate genus Styela whose morphology could be useful in understanding the origin of the vertebrates.

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Figure 1: The Lower Cambrian urochordate Cheungkongella ancestralis gen. et sp. nov. from Haikou, Kunming, Yunnan.

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Acknowledgements

This work is supported by the Ministry of Sciences and Technology of China, National Natural Science Foundation of China, Ministry of Education of China and Cheung Kong Scholars Programme, Sciences and Technology Committee of Shaanxi Province, and National Geographic Society, USA. We are grateful to B. J. Swalla and S. Conway Morris for suggestions. We thank N. Satoh, K. Yasui, H. Wada, R. P. S. Jefferies and S. M. Shimeld for remarks. We also thank Z. Luo, Z. Zhang, L. Guo, F. Yao and H. Liu for technical assistance.

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  1. Early Life Institute & Department of Geology, Northwest University, Xi’an, 710069, China

    D.-G. Shu, L. Chen, J. Han & X.-L. Zhang

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  1. D.-G. Shu
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Correspondence to D.-G. Shu.

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Shu, DG., Chen, L., Han, J. et al. An Early Cambrian tunicate from China. Nature 411, 472–473 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/35078069

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