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Palaeontology

Tiny fossils in the animal family tree

Nature volume 542, pages 170–171 (2017)Cite this article

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Newly discovered microscopic fossils might shed light on the early evolution of the deuterostomes, the animal group that includes vertebrates. But more work is needed to resolve the fossils' place in the deuterostome tree. See Letter p.228

One of the main divisions of the animal kingdom is the superphylum Deuterostomia, which includes organisms such as starfish, acorn worms and vertebrates. The evolutionary relationships of the living deuterostome groups, or phyla, are well established on the basis of genetic data1, but because these phyla have strikingly different adult body plans, the nature of their most recent common ancestor and the initial steps in deuterostome evolution are poorly understood. On page 228, Han et al.2 report fossils from China that date to the Cambrian period (around 541 million to 485 million years ago). The authors interpret these fossils as being primitive deuterostomes, and this discovery could improve our understanding of the origin and early evolution of this key animal group.

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Figure 1: The relationship of Saccorhytus to other deuterostomes.

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  1. Imran A. Rahman is at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PW, UK.,

    Imran A. Rahman

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  1. Imran A. Rahman
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Correspondence to Imran A. Rahman.

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Rahman, I. Tiny fossils in the animal family tree. Nature 542, 170–171 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature21493

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