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Yie Jang (Yunnan University)
Scientists have unearthed a stunningly preserved arthropod, called a fuxhianhuiid, in a flipped position that reveals its feeding limbs and nervous system.
By Tia Ghose
LiveScience
Scientists have unearthed extraordinarily preserved fossils of a 520-million-year-old sea creature, one of the earliest animal fossils ever found, according to a new study.
The fossilized animal, an arthropod called a fuxhianhuiid, has primitive limbs under its head, as well as the earliest example of a nervous system that extended past the head. The primitive creature may have used the limbs to push food into its mouth as it crept across the seafloor. The limbs may shed light on the evolutionary history of arthropods, which include crustaceans and insects.
"Since biologists rely heavily on organization of head appendages to classify arthropod groups, such as insects and spiders, our study provides a crucial reference point for reconstructing the evolutionary history and relationships of the most diverse and abundant animals on Earth," said study co-author Javier Ortega-Hernández, an earth scientist at the University of Cambridge, in a statement. "This is as early as we can currently see into arthropod limb development."
The findings were published Wednesday in the journal Nature.
Primordial animal
The fuxhianhuiid lived nearly 50 million years before animals first emerged from the sea onto land, during the early part of the Cambrian explosion, when simple multicellular organisms rapidly evolved into complex sea life. [See Images of the Wacky Cambrian Creatures ]
While paleontologists have unearthed previous examples of a fuxhianhuiid before, the fossils were all found in the head-down position, with their delicate internal organs obscured by a large carapace or shell.
However, when Ortega-Hernández and his colleagues began excavating in a fossil-rich region of southwest China around Kunming called Xiaoshiba, they unearthed several specimens of fuxhianhuiid where the bodies had been flipped before fossilization. All told, the team unearthed an amazingly preserved arthropod, as well as eight additional specimens.
These primeval creatures probably spent most of their days crawling across the seabed trawling for food and may have also been able to swim short distances. The sea creatures, some of the earliest arthropods or jointed animals, probably evolved from worms with legs.
The discovery sheds light on how some of the earliest ancestors of today's animals may have evolved.
"These fossils are our best window to see the most primitive state of animals as we know them – including us," Ortega-Hernández said in a statement. "Before that there is no clear indication in the fossil record of whether something was an animal or a plant – but we are still filling in the details, of which this is an important one."
Follow Tia Ghose on Twitter @tiaghose or LiveScience @livescience. We're also on Facebook and Google+.
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Leave a Comment:
Believing in evolution and knowing the earth is more than 6,000 years old doesn't mean you don't believe in God. As a species we are still evolving. Belief in salvation is fearing life, believing there is a devil and a purgatory. These are concepts to instill fear in people and to have power over them. Believe what you want.
I don't know if there is a "god" or not. If there is, it's never shown itself to me. But if so, wouldn't it be a much greater achievement to have spent 13.7 billion years puttin' this mess together than to spend 6 days sayin' "let there be..."?
But some people have to have a simple explanation for everything, so let 'em believe that some old hominid, greying at the temples, said a few words of mumbo jumbo, and within 144 hours there was a universe, complete with quintillions of stars and planetary systems, each with quintillions of living things, some of which are so far away it has taken 13.7 billion years for their light to reach us here at the "epitome of all creation"... The amazing part is how their light could be 13.7 billion years old in a 6,000-year-old universe. Now THAT is MAGIC!!! :D
If you were born, God was there!!!
What, He has to manage each birth personally?
That's so tedious. Wouldn't He have a guy for that?
bullsh--,crap,crap,bullsh--,crapola,crap,bullshi--,crap,etc.,etc.
looks like a Jesus horse!!!
More liberal media BS. The Earth is only 10,000 years old.
The world is only 6,000 years old! Anyone who thinks it is 10,000 years old is doing the work of the devil!
6,016 years, 4 months, 6 days as of 10:00 a.m. this morning, Zulu time, I guess. Only a slight miscalculation, off by about 13 or 14 billion years. But then, a billion here, a billion there, pretty soon it starts to add up... :D
lol
This they can get the age of .. but they still cant tell us the weather 24 hrs in advance
It depends on how specific you want the weather to be.
Do you have a point?
I would assume the point to be, The scientists dont know jock, Jock.
Its all just nonsense
The scientists appera to know quite a bit; you, however, do not.
I find it especially hilarious when the anti-science crowd claims scientists don't know anything, when they aren't even aware of what the scientists are saying in the first place. You have no idea what scientists do or don't know, and you wouldn't understand it anyway.
That's OK, Jock, let little Johnny wallow in his ignorance. He probably thinks that when the "magic kingdom" is established here on Earth, that it will be here forever - even after the sun has expanded beyond the orbit of Mars and evaporated the Earth 5 billion - er - is it 6,000 - years from now...
Johnny the Anti-Science guy using a PC? Too funny.
Beware of anything from china.
"a 520 million year old sea creature" and, later, "lived nearly 50 million years before animals first emerged from the sea onto land".
HUH? I thought the earliest move to land occurred 370-350 MYA. That sounds more like this one living 150 million years earlier. Someone knowledgeable please correct me if I am wrong. Citations appreciated.
370 MYA was for vertebrates (tetrapods). Arthropods were on land long before (or the tetrapods wouldn't have anything to eat.)
From an earlier post;
Pretty much debunks the evolution theory doesnt it? I mean, this is supposed to be what we were 500 million years ago?
Riiiight....
There is nothing like that living today, and even if there was, it wouldn't challenge evolution in any way.
And no, we did not evolve from arthropods, and probably not even arthropods evolved from this thing.
Not a particularly great diversion
http://www.ouramazingplanet.com/3884-rainforest-arthropod-diversity.html
"Gasp" The fabled Shrimpasaurus.
Or it could be its cousin, the Prawnasaur.
I'm sorry, Tia Ghose, you have the spelling wrong. It's FUXIANhuiid.
You screwed up your homing pigeon article, and now you've screwed up this one.
Does LiveScience have editors?
I know at least one poster has said this creature was 1-1.5 inches long, but why can't they report on how large it actually is?
The photo makes it look like it could be the size of a horse...or...it could also be microscopic.
How about some reporting here?
so now you know, anyone who claim to know the age of the earth and also being the messenger of christ is a false prophet. anyone who think creationism is even a word worth repeating, much less teach to texas and kansas children, is surely right up there with the cults and compounds and hundreds of child wives.
I just love science. And when it also shows more proof that the Christians bible is a work of fiction, science is double the fun. Earth is only 8-10 thousand years old? I don't think so.
wouldn't be great if we just kept finding new species like a monkey that cares for it's young using a pouch like kangaroos and it's not a koala
the bible doesnt say the earth is 6000 years old!!! omg you're all so stupid. if your gonna try and disprove things christians believe, try and learn what the bible ACTUALLY says.
Yeah, actually it does. If you do the chronological order of all the biblical characters "begatting". Of course, that too is dependent on which version of the Babble.....er....Bible you use.
There are Biblical errors in Bishop Ussher's timeline.
The other timeline brought up is Harold Camping's, 13,000 year old earth.
He did a good job of exposing Ussher's errors, but has had a few errors of his own. Camping has predicted the end of the world (based on HIS timeline) more times than we can keep track of.
whoa whoa whoa wait a minute, 520 million years?? They mean 5,200 years right? I mean it cant be past 6,000 years old after all. I thought the vatican had the fossil of the snake in the tree in the garden of eden. Science...always gettin it wrong. Amen.
You ever hear of the theory that if you traveled a day at the speed of light out into space and returned to earth that the earth could have aged thousands of years? Is it one day or thousands of years?
But it would take you thousands of years to get up to the speed of light, and thousands of years to slow down as you came home. So it's thousands of years any way you slice it.
The regressive party has finally found a creature to replace their elephant!
imagine finding one of those in your pool.
I'll bet it tastes like crawdad.
No, shrimp. It's salt water.
Awesome, I love shrimp!
Clone ancient species. Cook them in a pot. Devour them with butter.
Jurassic Park in reverse!
Hmmm, a restaurant that serves cloned extinct species.
"A Taste of the Past"?
"Distinct and Extinct"?
"Cafe de Cambrian"?
rofl - ok guys stop.... dont make me spit out my wine on the moniter again!
Are you sure is 500 years old ? According to some of our elected representatives the planet is only 6000 years old. These scientist better double check their science because I doubt our good christian politicians could be that wrong. It would prove that the Bible is nothing but a Fairy Tales book and everything they believe is only a hoax.... Nah, it can't be. I'm a blasphemer !! Probably just another liberal conspiracy, right?
I KNEW Cthulu was real!
At one and a half inches, it's not too imposing.
I'm sure Cthulu has the power to make himself as big, or as small, as he wants.
Always amused or is it perplexed by the anti Bible crowd.
I believe in God. But I also know that the Bible was inspired by God but written by man. Man had to describe things as it related to his knowledge at the time.
Best quote ever attributed to a Pastor is this one.
"Science is the how but God is the why."
So believing that God created everything is not in any way exclusive of science and evolution. God created the Earth in 7 days. What is a day to God? Why does this quote somehow prevent actual science and time and evolution from being how God did it?
We call them automobiles. People called the first ones horseless carriages because they didn't have much of an understanding of what it was.
Man not having a good understanding of things they wrote about in the Bible used terms they could understand.
I have nothing against the Bible. I just see no reason to believe that particular collection of old stories should hold any more weight than any other collection of old stories.
I too fiind active anti-Bible crusaders annoying (and I'm agnostic), but you at least should recognize that they're not just pulling these sarcastic Biblical "facts" out of their hats. There are people who claim that the Earth is 6,000-ish years old, and there are people on this very site who regularly claim that evolution is a lie and that God is the only truth or some such gibberish.
So if you feel picked on, it would probably be more useful to convert the faithful to recognize science than complain about anti-religion crusaders mocking your beliefs.
Didn't somebody once say that Science is also the search for 'God'?
If they did it's wrong. Ask a scientist about the supernatural and they would look at you funny. Science only deals with nature, the observable world we live in. BTW nothing they have found to-date indicates a god was involved.
Someone once said something to the effect of, 'I'm not trying to disprove God, I'm trying to figure out how he makes things work.'
Of course, the same person also said:
"The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge."
LOL......how do these wacko scientists figure out the age of these fossils? More radiometrics malarcky!
If you don't understand radiometrics, that's your problem. Don't take it out on people who know more than you. Although it is really pretty simple physics.
So, how was this dated? It seems to be in sedimentary rock. Sedimentary CANNOT be dated. If you try to date sedimentary rock, you are really dating the "parent rock" that it came from.
Again, another day, another LIE!
They usually try to find volcanic rock above and below to give boundaries.
You ask a question and then pass judgment before you get an answer. If you want to know how it was dated, you can look the dam thing up, no?
Please stop feeding the great LIE CYCLE trying to deny creation explosions multiorganisms developing into life but still no explanation how those organisms began and if so where is law and theory did that come from a single cell organism Science is necessary but denying fact with fabricated lies is unexceptable
Then don't deny facts with fabricated lies.
justdigital
What an absurd argument you make. By following the scientific method the theory of evolution was developed to explain what it was possible to explain based on observable phenomena. Science does not have a theory for how "organisms began" because facts do not support any theory. There are a number of hypotheses for which insufficient evidence exists to support a theory regarding the beginning of life on Earth. There is overwhelming proof, however, for the theory of evolution.
Science would be as intellectually dishonest as the creationists in the religious community are if they would claim to know the answers where proof does not exist.
Now how could ANYONE deny something as articulate and sensible as that?
Why are the evolution deniers, especially those that are almost violent in their denials, the ones with the worst spelling and grammar?