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Palaeontology

Decay distorts ancestry

Nature volume 463, pages 741–742 (2010)Cite this article

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Experiments with simple chordate animals show how decay may make the resulting fossils seem less evolved. The consequence is to distort evidence of the evolution of the earliest vertebrates and their precursors.

Just as human corpses become more difficult to identify as information is lost through decay, so too do the fossils of our marine ancestors from back in the Cambrian. For example, a remarkable diversity of soft-bodied, fish-like fossils, dating to about 525 million years ago, have been described from Chengjiang in China. Uncertainties about the nature of these creatures, however, have fuelled controversies about their place in the early evolution of chordates, the group that includes all vertebrates and some closely related invertebrates.

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Figure 1: 'Stem-ward slippage.'
Figure 2: Early Cambrian yunnanozoan.

A, D. SIVETER/REF. 2; B, J. CHEN

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Derek E. G. Briggs is in the Department of Geology and Geophysics, and the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520, USA. derek.briggs@yale.edu,

    Derek E. G. Briggs

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  1. Derek E. G. Briggs
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Briggs, D. Decay distorts ancestry. Nature 463, 741–742 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/463741a

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