Taxonomy articles within Nature

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Single-cell and single-nucleus transcriptomic analysis of retina from 17 vertebrate species shows high conservation of retinal cell types and suggests that midget retinal ganglion cells in primates evolved from orthologous cells in ancestral mammals.

    • Joshua Hahn
    • , Aboozar Monavarfeshani
    •  & Karthik Shekhar
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Computed tomography reveals that the cranial anatomy of Ordovician stem-group gnathostome Eriptychius americanus from the Harding Sandstone of Colorado, USA, is distinct among vertebrates.

    • Richard P. Dearden
    • , Agnese Lanzetti
    •  & Ivan J. Sansom
  • Article |

    An avialan species from the Zhenghe Fauna—a collection of vertebrate fossils from the Late Jurassic of China—had an unusual combination of features, including very long hindlimbs, suggesting that it had a terrestrial or wading lifestyle.

    • Liming Xu
    • , Min Wang
    •  & Zhonghe Zhou
  • Article |

    Provora is an ancient supergroup of microbial predators that are genetically, morphologically and behaviourally distinct from other eukaryotes, and comprise two divergent clades of predators—Nebulidia and Nibbleridia—that differ fundamentally in ultrastructure, behaviour and gene content.

    • Denis V. Tikhonenkov
    • , Kirill V. Mikhailov
    •  & Patrick J. Keeling
  • Article
    | Open Access

    A new elpistostegalian from the Late Devonian period has been discovered that shows disparity in the group and represents a previously hidden ecological expansion, a secondary return to open water, near the origin of limbed vertebrates.

    • Thomas A. Stewart
    • , Justin B. Lemberg
    •  & Neil H. Shubin
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Interpretation of the early Cambrian fossil Protomelission gatehousei9 as a potential stem-group bryozoan realigns the fossil record with molecular clock estimations of the origins of Bryozoa.

    • Zhiliang Zhang
    • , Zhifei Zhang
    •  & Glenn A. Brock
  • Letter |

    Phylogenetic analyses based on single-cell transcriptomic data from two hemimastigotes, a Spironema species and the newly described Hemimastix kukwesjijk, indicate that Hemimastigophora is a supra-kingdom-level lineage of eukaryotes.

    • Gordon Lax
    • , Yana Eglit
    •  & Alastair G. B. Simpson
  • Letter |

    Analysis of exceptionally preserved fossils of the Cambrian hyolith Haplophrentis leads to a proposed evolutionary relationship with Lophophorata, the group containing brachiopods and phoronids, on the basis of a newly described tentacular feeding apparatus.

    • Joseph Moysiuk
    • , Martin R. Smith
    •  & Jean-Bernard Caron
  • Letter |

    The chimaeroids are one of the four principal divisions of the living jawed vertebrates and their evolutionary origins have been hard to discern; here, the study of a skull of the extinct shark Dwykaselachus shows that the chimaeroids nest among the once fairly common and widespread symmoriiforms.

    • Michael I. Coates
    • , Robert W. Gess
    •  & Kristen Tietjen
  • Letter |

    The Tully monster (Tullimonstrum), a problematic fossil from the 309–307-million-year-old Mazon Creek biota of Illinois, is shown to be not only a vertebrate but also akin to lampreys, increasing the morphological disparity of that group.

    • Victoria E. McCoy
    • , Erin E. Saupe
    •  & Derek E. G. Briggs
  • Letter |

    Robust phylogenetic analysis based on transcriptomes of Xenoturbella and acoelomorph worms shows that Xenacoelomorpha is an early bilaterian lineage forming the sister group to Nephrozoa.

    • Johanna Taylor Cannon
    • , Bruno Cossermelli Vellutini
    •  & Andreas Hejnol
  • News & Views |

    Marine algae known as coccolithophores produce much of the ocean's calcium carbonate. A large survey reveals how these organisms' calcification processes and species distribution change in response to carbon dioxide levels. See Letter p.80

    • David A. Hutchins
  • Editorial |

    Zoologists should follow botanists in allowing online-only announcements of new species.