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Letters to Nature
Nature 427, 237-240 (15 January 2004) | doi:10.1038/nature02215; Received 4 September 2003; Accepted 4 November 2003
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Fossil embryos from the Middle and Late Cambrian period of Hunan, south China
Xi-ping Dong1, Philip C. J. Donoghue2, Hong Cheng3 & Jian-bo Liu1
- Department of Geology, Peking University, Beijing 100871, People's Republic of China
- Department of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol, Wills Memorial Building, Queens Road, Bristol BS8 1RJ, UK
- College of Life Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, People's Republic of China
Correspondence to: Xi-ping Dong1Philip C. J. Donoghue2 Email: dongxp@pku.edu.cn
Email: phil.donoghue@bristol.ac.uk
Abstract
Comparative embryology is integral to uncovering the pattern and process of metazoan phylogeny1, but it relies on the assumption that life histories of living taxa are representative of their antecedents. Fossil embryos provide a crucial test of this assumption and, potentially, insight into the evolution of development, but because discoveries so far2, 3, 4, 5 lack phylogenetic constraint, their significance is moot. Here we describe a collection of embryos from the Middle and Late Cambrian period (500 million years ago) of Hunan, south China, that preserves stages of development from cleavage to the pre-hatching embryo of a direct-developing animal comparable to living Scalidophora (phyla Priapulida, Kinorhyncha, Loricifera). The latest-stage embryos show affinity to the Lower Cambrian embryo Markuelia3, whose life-history strategy contrasts both with the primitive condition inferred for metazoan phyla and with many proposed hypotheses of affinity3, 6, all of which prescribe indirect development. Phylogenetic tests based on these embryological data suggest a stem Scalidophora affinity. These discoveries corroborate, rather than contradict, the predictions of comparative embryology, providing direct historical support for the view that the life-history strategies of living taxa are representative of their stem lineages.
- Department of Geology, Peking University, Beijing 100871, People's Republic of China
- Department of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol, Wills Memorial Building, Queens Road, Bristol BS8 1RJ, UK
- College of Life Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, People's Republic of China
Correspondence to: Xi-ping Dong1Philip C. J. Donoghue2 Email: dongxp@pku.edu.cn
Email: phil.donoghue@bristol.ac.uk
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RESEARCH
Synchrotron X-ray tomographic microscopy of fossil embryosNature Letters to Editor (10 Aug 2006)
