Recognizing any similarities between the brachiopods, the bryozoans and the phoronids could seem unattainable. These sea creatures do all reside sedentary life — attaching themselves to rocks and reefs alongside the ocean ground. However what traits might the clam-like, hard-shelled brachiopods presumably share with animals that resemble frilly aquatic vegetation?
Scientists say that the reply lies in these animals’ ancestry. In accordance with recent research in Present Biology, all residing brachiopods, bryozoans and phoronids might hint their lineage again to a single species — an historical, armored worm often known as Wufengella.
“When it first turned clear to me what this fossil was that I used to be taking a look at beneath the microscope, I couldn’t consider my eyes. This can be a fossil that we’ve usually speculated about and hoped we might in the future lay eyes on,” says Luke Parry, a examine creator and paleobiologist on the College of Oxford, in keeping with a press launch.
Lophophorate Lineages
All animals are separated into considered one of round 30-or-so separate classes referred to as phyla. These phyla all characteristic particular units of anatomical buildings that distinguish them from the others, and only some of those buildings are included in multiple phylum.
As an illustration, solely three phyla — the brachiopods, the bryozoans and the phoronids — share units of folded-up, frilled tentacles referred to as lophophores. Permitting an animal to grab particles of meals as they float by means of the ocean, these specialised tentacles present the three phyla their collective title, the “lophophorates.” Additionally they provide an anatomical clue that the lophophorates might be intently associated to 1 one other, regardless of the opposite variations of their physique buildings.
Now, a very well-preserved fossil specimen from 518 million years in the past provides additional help for the shut ancestry of those three phyla. It reveals that their most up-to-date widespread ancestor was most likely the Wufengella, an agile, armored species of worm.
“This discovery highlights how essential fossils may be for reconstructing evolution,” says Greg Edgecombe, a examine creator and a researcher on the Pure Historical past Museum in London, in keeping with a press release. “We get an incomplete image by solely taking a look at residing animals, with the comparatively few anatomical characters which might be shared between completely different phyla. With fossils like Wufengella, we will hint every lineage again to its roots, realizing how they as soon as appeared altogether completely different and had very completely different modes of life, generally distinctive and generally shared with extra distant kin.”
Wufengella
In accordance with the group of researchers analyzing the fossil, Wufengella was a small, brief species lower than an inch lengthy. The traditional worm was protected by an array of armored, shell-like plates, and lined in numerous lobe-like protrusions and bunches of bristles all throughout the perimeters of its physique.
These traits, the researchers say, along with inner buildings inside the worm’s physique, indicate the species’ shared ancestry with the lophophorates. Plus, when mixed with molecular analyses of the animals’ amino acid sequences, they affirm that at present’s brachiopods, bryozoans and phoronids are all intently associated to 1 one other.
“Wufengella belongs to a gaggle of Cambrian fossils that’s essential for understanding how lophophorates developed,” says Parry.
