A recent paper in Nature details what scientists found at the Huayuan biota:
Here we report the Huayuan biota — a lower Cambrian (Stage 4, approximately 512 million years ago) BST Lagerstätte from an outer shelf, deep-water setting of the Yangtze Block in Hunan, South China. The Huayuan biota yields remarkable taxonomic richness, comprising 153 animal species of 16 phylum-level clades dominated by arthropods, poriferans and cnidarians, among which 59% of species are new. The biota is comprised overwhelmingly of soft-bodied forms that include preserved cellular tissues.
They have identified more than 50,000 individual fossil specimens that existed during what’s referred to as the
Cambrian explosion, “when a sudden radiation of complex life occurred and practically all major animal phyla started appearing in the fossil record”. The fossils at the site
are unusually intact:
Not only is this ecosystem notably diverse, but the fossils have remained unusually intact in the ancient mudstone, allowing for the preservation of soft tissues like tentacles, guts, and a nearly-complete nervous system found in one arthropod.
I’ve been interested in this period in paleontology since reading Stephen Jay Gould’s
Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History in college.
The Burgess Shale was a significant discovery that shed much light on the Cambrian explosion and surprisingly,
paleontologists found fossils that appeared in both places.
The Burgess Shale animals date to about 508 million years ago, further removed from the Sinsk event than the Huayuan biota. Despite the vast distance separating the two sites, fossils of several of the same animals were found in the two locations.
“It surprised us when we found the Huayuan biota shared various animals with the Burgess Shale, including the arthropods Helmetia and Surusicaris that were previously only known from the Burgess Shale,” Zeng said.
“As larval stages are common in extant marine invertebrates, the best explanation of these shared taxa shall be that the larvae of early animals were capable of spreading by ocean currents since the early days of animals in the Cambrian,” Zeng said.
For those looking for more info on this discovery and its significance, paleontologist Dr. Joe Botting’s
video on the Huayuan biota, which he calls “a stunning new Burgess Shale-type fauna”, might be a good place to start.
Tags: paleontology · science
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