Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

An epipodite-bearing crown-group crustacean from the Lower Cambrian

Nature volume 449, pages 595–598 (2007)Cite this article

Abstract

Crown-group crustaceans (Eucrustacea) are common in the fossil record of the past 500 million years back to the early Ordovician period, and very rare representatives are also known from the late Middle and Late Cambrian periods1. Finds in Lower Cambrian rocks of the Phosphatocopina, the fossil sister group to eucrustaceans2, imply that members of the eucrustacean stem lineage co-occurred, but it remained unclear whether crown-group members were also present at that time. ‘Orsten’-type fossils are typically tiny embryos and cuticle-bearing animals, of which the cuticle is phosphatized and the material is three-dimensional and complete with soft parts. Such fossils are found predominantly in the Cambrian and Ordovician and provide detailed morphological and phylogenetic information on the early evolution of metazoans. Here we report an Orsten-type Konservat-Lagerstätte from the Lower Cambrian of China that contains at least three new arthropod species, of which we describe the most abundant form on the basis of exceptionally well preserved material of several growth stages. The limb morphology and other details of this new species are markedly similar to those of living cephalocarids, branchiopods and copepods and it is assigned to the Eucrustacea, thus representing the first undoubted crown-group crustacean from the early Cambrian. Its stratigraphical position provides substantial support to the proposition that the main cladogenic event that gave rise to the Arthropoda was before the Cambrian3. Small leaf-shaped structures on the outer limb base of the new species provide evidence on the long-debated issue of the origin of epipodites4,5: they occur in a set of three, derive from setae and are a ground-pattern feature of Eucrustacea.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Get just this article for as long as you need it

$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Y. dianensis ; topotype specimens.
Figure 2: Reconstruction of Y. dianensis on the basis of a larval stage with eight thoracomeres (developmental stage 4).
Figure 3: Proposed phylogenetic position of Y. dianensis , within the crown group of arthropods.

References

  1. Waloszek, D. in The New Panorama of Animal Evolution (eds Legakis, A., Sfenthourakis, S., Polymeni, R. & Thessalou-Legaki, M.) 69–87 (Pensoft, Sofia-Moscow, 2003)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Siveter, D. J., Waloszek, D. & Williams, M. An early Cambrian phosphatocopid crustacean with three-dimensionally preserved soft parts from Shropshire, England. Spec. Pap. Palaeont. 70, 9–30 (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Peterson, K. J., McPeek, M. A. & Evans, D. A. Tempo and mode of early animal evolution: inferences from rocks, Hox, and molecular clocks. Paleobiology 31 (suppl.). 36–55 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Lauterbach, K. Über die mutmaßliche Herkunft der Epipodite der Crustacea. Zool. Anz. 202, 33–50 (1979)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Hessler, R. R. Reflections on the phylogenetic position of the Cephalocarida. Acta Zool. 73, 315–316 (1992)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  6. Hou, X.-G. et al. The Cambrian Fossils of Chengjiang, China: the Flowering of Early Animal Life (Blackwell, Oxford, 2004)

    Google Scholar 

  7. Luo, H.-L. et al. The Sinian–Cambrian Boundary in Eastern Yunnan, China (Yunnan People’s Publishing, Kunming, 1982)

    Google Scholar 

  8. Hou, X.-G., Siveter, D. J., Williams, M. & Feng, X.-H. A monograph of Bradoriid arthropods from the Lower Cambrian of southwest China. Trans. R. Soc. Edinb. Earth Sci. 92, 347–409 (2002)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Chen, J.-Y., Vannier, J. & Huang, D.-Y. The origin of crustaceans: new evidence from the Early Cambrian of China. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B 268, 2181–2187 (2001)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Babbitt, C. C. & Patel, N. H. in Crustacea and Arthropod Relationships Vol. 16 (eds Koenemann, S. & Jenner, R. A.) 275–294 (Taylor & Francis, Boca Raton, 2005)

    Book  Google Scholar 

  11. Fanenbruck, M. & Harzsch, S. A brain atlas of Godzilliognomus frondosus Yager, 1989 (Remipedia, Godzilliidae) and comparison with the brain of Speleonectes tulumensis Yager, 1987 (Remipedia, Speleonectidae): implications for arthropod relationships. Arth. Struc. Dev. 34, 343–378 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Giribet, G., Richter, S., Edgecombe, G. D. & Wheeler, W. C. in Crustacea and Arthropod Relationships Vol. 16 (eds Koenemann, S. & Jenner, R. A.) 307–352 (Taylor & Francis, Boca Raton, 2005)

    Google Scholar 

  13. Glenner, H., Thomsen, P. F., Hebsgaard, M. B., Sørensen, M. V. & Willerslev, E. The origin of insects. Science 314, 1883–1884 (2006)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  14. Wolff, C. &. Scholtz, G. Cell lineage analysis of the mandibular segment of the amphipod Orchestia cavimana reveals that the crustacean paragnaths are sternal outgrowths and not limbs. Front. Zool. 3, 1–14 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Carapelli, A. et al. in Crustacea and Arthropod Relationships Vol. 16 (eds Koenemann, S. & Jenner, R. A.) 295–306 (Taylor & Francis, Boca Raton, 2005)

    Book  Google Scholar 

  16. Walossek, D. The Upper Cambrian Rehbachiella and the phylogeny of Branchiopoda and Crustacea. Foss. Strat. 32, 1–202 (1993)

    Google Scholar 

  17. Olesen, J. in Evolutionary Developmental Biology of Crustacea Vol. 15 (ed. Scholtz, G.) 217–269 (Lisse, Balkema, 2004)

    Google Scholar 

  18. Schram, F. R. & Koenemann, S. Developmental genetics and arthropod evolution: part I, on legs. Evol. Dev. 3, 343–354 (2001)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  19. Sanders, H. L. The Cephalocarida. Functional morphology, larval development, comparative external anatomy. Mem. Conn. Acad. Arts Sci. 15, 1–80 (1963)

    Google Scholar 

  20. Maas, A., Waloszek, D. & Müller, K. J. Morphology, ontogeny and phylogeny of the Phosphatocopina (Crustacea) from the Upper Cambrian “Orsten” of Sweden. Foss. Strat. 49, 1–238 (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  21. Walossek, D. & Müller, K. J. Stem-lineage crustaceans from the Upper Cambrian of Sweden and their bearing upon the position of Agnostus . Lethaia 23, 409–427 (1990)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Cannon, H. G. & Leak, F. M. C. On the feeding mechanism of the Branchiopoda. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B 222, 267–352 (1933)

    Google Scholar 

  23. Barlow, D. I. & Sleigh, M. A. in The Brine Shrimp Artemia, 1, Morphology, Genetics, Radiobiology, Toxicology (eds Persoone, G., Sorgeloos, P., Roels, O. & Jaspers, E.) 61–73 (Universa, Wetteren, 1980)

    Google Scholar 

  24. Cannon, H. G. On the feeding mechanism of Nebalia bipes . Trans. R. Soc. Edinb. 55, 355–369 (1927)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Cannon, H. G. Nebaliacea. Discov. Rep. 3, 199–222 (1931)

    Google Scholar 

  26. Hamner, W. M. Biomechanics of filter feeding in the Antarctic krill Euphausia superba: review of past work and new observations. J. Crust . Biol. 8, 149–163 (1988)

    Google Scholar 

  27. Yager, J. Remipedia, a new class of Crustacea from a marine cave in the Bahamas. J. Crust . Biol. 1, 328–333 (1981)

    Google Scholar 

  28. Burnett, B. R. & Hessler, R. R. Thoracic epipodites in the Stomatopoda (Crustacea): a phylogenetic consideration. J. Zool. 169, 381–392 (1973)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Averof, M. & Cohen, S. M. Evolutionary origin of insect wings from ancestral gills. Nature 385, 627–630 (1997)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  30. Boxshall, G. A. The evolution of arthropod limbs. Biol. Rev. 79, 253–300 (2004)

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China, the Ministry of Science and Technology of China, the Royal Society and the German Research Council.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory for Palaeobiology, Yunnan University, Kunming 650091, China

    Xi-guang Zhang

  2. Department of Geology, University of Leicester, Leicester LE1 7RH, UK

    David J. Siveter

  3. Section for Biosystematic Documentation, University of Ulm, D-98081 Ulm, Germany

    Dieter Waloszek & Andreas Maas

Authors
  1. Xi-guang Zhang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. David J. Siveter
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Dieter Waloszek
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Andreas Maas
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Xi-guang Zhang.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

The file contains Supplementary Notes and additional references. The Supplementary Notes provide plainer and more detailed data about the stratigraphy of the Lower Cambrian strata that yielded the Orsten type preservation and the phylogeny of the initial crustacean. (PDF 71 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Zhang, Xg., Siveter, D., Waloszek, D. et al. An epipodite-bearing crown-group crustacean from the Lower Cambrian. Nature 449, 595–598 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature06138

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature06138

This article is cited by

Comments

By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing