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Complex brain and optic lobes in an early Cambrian arthropod

Nature volume 490, pages 258–261 (2012)Cite this article

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Abstract

The nervous system provides a fundamental source of data for understanding the evolutionary relationships between major arthropod groups1,2. Fossil arthropods rarely preserve neural tissue. As a result, inferring sensory and motor attributes of Cambrian taxa has been limited to interpreting external features, such as compound eyes3 or sensilla decorating appendages4, and early-diverging arthropods have scarcely been analysed in the context of nervous system evolution. Here we report exceptional preservation of the brain and optic lobes of a stem-group arthropod from 520 million years ago (Myr ago), Fuxianhuia protensa5, exhibiting the most compelling neuroanatomy known from the Cambrian. The protocerebrum of Fuxianhuia is supplied by optic lobes evidencing traces of three nested optic centres serving forward-viewing eyes. Nerves from uniramous antennae define the deutocerebrum, and a stout pair of more caudal nerves indicates a contiguous tritocerebral component. Fuxianhuia shares a tripartite pre-stomodeal brain and nested optic neuropils with extant Malacostraca and Insecta2,6, demonstrating that these characters were present in some of the earliest derived arthropods. The brain of Fuxianhuia impacts molecular analyses that advocate either a branchiopod-like ancestor of Hexapoda7,8 or remipedes and possibly cephalocarids as sister groups of Hexapoda9,10. Resolving arguments about whether the simple brain of a branchiopod approximates an ancestral insect brain or whether it is the result of secondary simplification has until now been hindered by lack of fossil evidence. The complex brain of Fuxianhuia accords with cladistic analyses on the basis of neural characters, suggesting that Branchiopoda derive from a malacostracan-like ancestor but underwent evolutionary reduction and character reversal of brain centres that are common to hexapods and malacostracans2. The early origin of sophisticated brains provides a probable driver for versatile visual behaviours, a view that accords with compound eyes from the early Cambrian that were, in size and resolution, equal to those of modern insects and malacostracans3.

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Figure 1: Fuxianhuia protensa from the Chengjiang Lagerstätte.
Figure 2: Brain of Fuxianhuia protensa and comparison with Malacostraca.
Figure 3: Eyes of fuxianhuiids and comparison to Malacostraca.

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Acknowledgements

This account is dedicated to J. Bergström, who was first in suggesting a brain in YKLP 15006. The present work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (40730211), a Leverhulme Trust Research Project Grant (F/00 696/T), and the Center for Insect Science, University of Arizona. We thank A. Ball and J. Spratt for their assistance with scanning electron microscopy imagery and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, respectively.

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Authors and Affiliations

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

    Xiaoya Ma & Xianguang Hou

  2. Department of Earth Sciences, The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, UK,

    Xiaoya Ma & Gregory D. Edgecombe

  3. Department of Neuroscience and Center for Insect Science, University of Arizona, Tucson, 85721, Arizona, USA

    Nicholas J. Strausfeld

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  1. Xiaoya Ma
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All authors contributed equally to this work.

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Correspondence to Xiaoya Ma.

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Ma, X., Hou, X., Edgecombe, G. et al. Complex brain and optic lobes in an early Cambrian arthropod. Nature 490, 258–261 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature11495

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