News: "Daisy Chains" of Fossil Creatures Found in China.
Ye Old One
James Owen
for National Geographic News
October 9, 2008
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/10/081009-fossil-chain.html?source=rss
"Daisy chains" of small fossil creatures recently discovered in
southwest China reveal an extremely ancient and bizarre type of animal
grouping, scientists say.
The shrimplike marine organisms, a previously unknown species that
lived around 525 million years ago, were found linked head-to-tail at
the fossil-rich Chengjiang site in Yunnan Province.
The fossils show 22 complete or partial chains containing up to 20
animals, a team led by Xianguang Hou of China's Yunnan University
reports in this week's issue of the journal Science.
The fossil sample contained just one unattached individual, which was
the longest specimen found at just under an inch (2.4 centimeters).
"It's a really fascinating finding—quite extraordinary, and a big
puzzle," commented Nicholas Strausfeld, a regents' professor at the
University of Arizona.
"The regularity of this row of animals is amazing," added Strausfeld,
who wasn't part of the study team.
The extinct species, which is due to be named shortly, was a
crustacean ancestor with a head shield—or carapace—and a segmented
body, said team member Derek Siveter, professor of earth sciences at
the University of Oxford in the U.K.
"If you found one on your plate at the local restaurant, you'd
identify it as a shrimplike thing," Siveter said.
The interlinked fossil chains remained intact despite becoming
stretched and twisted over the years.
"You can see quite clearly where individual animals have been bent at
right angles, but the integrity of the chain is maintained," Siveter
said.
Open Water
While it's possible the animals lived on the seabed, the study team
thinks they swam or floated in the water column.
Feeding in this chained formation probably wasn't an option, since
each animal's mouth opening would have been covered by the tail of the
one in front, Siveter noted.
"The tail may have been grasped by the head appendages of the animal
behind," he added.
Such groupings are otherwise unknown among living and extinct
arthropods (the group that includes crustaceans, insects, and
spiders), the study team said.
The only obvious living parallels for this kind of setup are salps,
jellyfishlike ocean-drifters that are related to sea squirts, the
researchers said.
Salps form lines of interlinked colonies as part of their reproductive
cycle.
"But we don't find this type of reproductive mode in other
arthropods," Siveter said. "So then we come back to a more simple
explanation, that these animals congregated in this fashion for
migration."
A loose analogy exists in today's spiny lobsters, which are found in
tropical regions including the Caribbean, he said.
Though the lobsters don't link up in a chain during migration, "they
march roughly in lines on the seabed at certain times of the year,"
Siveter said.
Migration does seem the most rational explanation for the fossils,
agreed Strausfeld, of the University of Arizona.
"That's all you have to go on, quite frankly, based on the crustaceans
tramping around on the planet today," he said.
Another possibility, Strausfeld said, is that the animals "may have
been preserved before they hatched out of this long egg case."
The strength and precision of the chains, with their repeated head and
tail insertions, suggests some kind of packaging was involved, he
said.
"The egg case, if it's gelatinous, wouldn't be preserved," he added.
And the bigger, unattached specimen could represent an adult or a
hatchling.
"Maybe the sac breaks down when the animal reaches a certain size,"
Strausfeld said.
Evolutionary Test?
The fossils date to the so-called Cambrian Explosion, a rapid
evolutionary flowering when many of the major animal groups appeared.
"At that time in history there were some very strange things, and a
lot of experimentation going on," Strausfeld said.
Although he knows no precedent for crustaceanlike animals producing
egg cases that house numerous developing embryos, "it's possible [the
fossils represent] strange ways of reproduction and development that
are no longer with us," he added.
Siveter, of the University of Oxford, said the new discovery "gives us
another window on this early proliferation of life, when all the major
groups which sustain biodiversity to the present day were introduced
to the fossil record."
--
Bob.
John Harshman
1) A migration to a new food source of a species that lived in small
colonies. The same sort of behavior is regularly seen in living tent
caterpillars, with long head-to-toe, single-file lines.
2. Can anyone say "conga"?
Robert Carnegie
But I wonder if they would have been, say, hiding together under a
rock shelf from the volcanic eruption that killed them and then
preserved the impression of their remains - if that fits the details
of the story. Just an ill-informed conjecture.
Or, given the reported frequent association between sexually
licentious behaviour and destructive acts of God, it could be both...
We do check that these stories are true, don't we? I mean, when the
April issues of the journals come out - in September -
Boikat
wrote:
> Ye Old One wrote:
> > "Daisy Chains" of Fossil Creatures Found in China
> > James Owen
> > for National Geographic News
> > October 9, 2008
>
Don't lobsters do that (though not physically attaching themselves to
the lobster in front of them)?
2. Can anyone say "conga"?
Boikat
heekster
Road kill.
They migrate across paved roads in the Pacific Northwet, seasonally.
(M)-adman
I would like to know how they reproduced.
--
A cup of coffee and some truth with:
·.¸Adman¸.·
^^^^^^^^^^^
eduart wolf
> But I wonder if they would have been, say, hiding together under a
> rock shelf from the volcanic eruption that killed them and then
> preserved the impression of their remains - if that fits the details
> of the story. Just an ill-informed conjecture.
Hello, here is more ll-informed conjecture.
I like this idea with shrimps hiding and dying there.
It seems so incredibly unlikely to have fossil proof of an
behavior never observed in any related species.
Actually I have seen rows of shrimp:
I remember in the Maldives in the early hours sometimes
the beach had small( 3-5mm) shrimp on the sand,
in neat curved rows deposited by little waves on
smooth sand. Always a sign for the fishermen
to go quickly after the fish that had followed swarms of shrimp.
If such lines of shrimp on coral sand had fossilized,
we could built some interesting theories there.
regards ed
John Harshman
> John Harshman wrote:
>> Two hypotheses:
>>
>> 1) A migration to a new food source of a species that lived in small
>> colonies. The same sort of behavior is regularly seen in living tent
>> caterpillars, with long head-to-toe, single-file lines.
>>
>> 2. Can anyone say "conga"?
>
> I would like to know how they reproduced.
What exactly is your interest in arthropod porn?
Ray Martinez
> "Daisy Chains" of Fossil Creatures Found in China
> James Owen
> for National Geographic News
> October 9, 2008
>
This description of the Cambrian Explosion is pure fraud. The CE is
exactly opposite of what one expects in evolutionary phenomena. Sudden
explosion of fully formed organisms corresponds directly to a unique
special creation event----not gradualism. Once again, lies like this
explain why over half of all adults in the U.S. are antievolutionists.
Simple things like this prove that evolutionists will lie to your
face; they cannot be trusted.
Other than this the article is, of course, interesting.
> "At that time in history there were some very strange things, and a
> lot of experimentation going on," Strausfeld said.
>
> Although he knows no precedent for crustaceanlike animals producing
> egg cases that house numerous developing embryos, "it's possible [the
> fossils represent] strange ways of reproduction and development that
> are no longer with us," he added.
>
> Siveter, of the University of Oxford, said the new discovery "gives us
> another window on this early proliferation of life, when all the major
> groups which sustain biodiversity to the present day were introduced
> to the fossil record."
>
> --
> Bob.
Ray
snex
how "sudden" was the cambrian explosion, and how do you know?
what is would a non-"fully formed organism" look like? can you draw
one?
Ray Martinez
So sudden it is universally known as, and recognized to be, an
"explosion."
> what is would a non-"fully formed organism" look like? can you draw
> one?- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
What?
Ray
snex
thats not an answer. why are you evading?
>
> > what is would a non-"fully formed organism" look like? can you draw
> > one?- Hide quoted text -
>
>
> What?
>
you tell me. you think that evolution would predict something other
than "fully formed organisms." so you must know what a "non-fully
formed organism" should look like. can you draw one?
Dana Tweedy
"Ray Martinez" <pyram...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:9a5742c3-4dda-4f34...@w24g2000prd.googlegroups.com...
snip
>
>> Evolutionary Test?
>
>> The fossils date to the so-called Cambrian Explosion, a rapid
>> evolutionary flowering when many of the major animal groups appeared.
>
>This description of the Cambrian Explosion is pure fraud.
Why, Ray? Does this have something to do with your ignorance of the
period?
>The CE is
>exactly opposite of what one expects in evolutionary phenomena.
The Cambrian explosion represents a relatively rapid diversification of life
forms, from common ancestors. Why would this be opposite of what evolution
predicts?
>Sudden
>explosion of fully formed organisms corresponds directly to a unique
>special creation event----not gradualism.
But that's not what one sees in the Cambrian Explosion. Of course all
organisms in the fossil record are "fully formed", because organisms that
aren't "fully formed" don't survive. There's no evidence of a 'unique
special creation event".
>Once again, lies like this
>explain why over half of all adults in the U.S. are antievolutionists.
Ray, it's explained by the fact that over half the adults in the US are
ignorant of science.
>Simple things like this prove that evolutionists will lie to your
> face; they cannot be trusted.
The "evolutionists" are not the ones who are lying.
> Other than this the article is, of course, interesting.
Which means Ray obviously doesn't understand the article.
DJT
Dana Tweedy
>
>> how "sudden" was the cambrian explosion, and how do you know?
>
>So sudden it is universally known as, and recognized to be, an
>"explosion."
Do you really think that 12 million years is an "explosion'?
> what is would a non-"fully formed organism" look like? can you draw
> one?- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
> What?
What didn't you understand, Ray?
DJT
Caranx latus
Evasions again, Ray? Why is it that you seem unable to answer even the
simplest of questions without being vague or evasive?
From <http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/cambrian/camb.html>, [quote]
543 to 490 Million Years Ago
The Cambrian Period marks an important point in the history of life on
earth; it is the time when most of the major groups of animals first
appear in the fossil record. This event is sometimes called the
"Cambrian Explosion", because of the relatively short time over which
this diversity of forms appears. It was once thought that the Cambrian
rocks contained the first and oldest fossil animals, but these are now
to be found in the earlier Vendian strata.
[end quote]
Any explosion that lasts 53 million years, Ray, would be absolutely
imperceivable in realtime. Had you been there in person, you wouldn't
have noticed anything. There simply is no "sudden explosion of fully
formed organisms," and certainly nothing that corresponds to a "unique
special creation event." Except in your fantasies.
Shane
> "Ray Martinez" <pyram...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:f1fa6cc3-8001-4cbf...@s9g2000prm.googlegroups.com...
> On Oct 10, 3:47 pm, snex <x...@comcast.net> wrote:
> snip
>>
>>> how "sudden" was the cambrian explosion, and how do you know?
>>
>
>>So sudden it is universally known as, and recognized to be, an
>>"explosion."
>
> Do you really think that 12 million years is an "explosion'?
It's a lot qhicker than the time it is going to take him to finish his
paper, even working at his current frantic pace: so the answer is yes,
he probably does.
[...]
Boikat
It looked pretty authentic to me.
But I think it's most likely a "migration" thing, like John Harshman
suggested.
If they were all hiding under a rock ledge, I do not think they would
have all been lined up and spaces as regularly as they appear.
Th "egg case" idea from the article seems dubious to me, since the
individuals are in contact with each other, and still would not
explain their precise nose to tail alingment, either.
Someone also mentioned seeing small crustaceans washed up on a sandy
shore in lines formed by wave action, no doubt. But again, I think it
would be odd for them to all be nose to tail, and spaced the way they
are. I also did not get the impression that the fossils were found on
a "shore" deposite.
Boikat
Boikat
But in the *context* of geology and paleontology, an "explosion" can
cover hundreds of thousands or even millions of years.
>
> > what is would a non-"fully formed organism" look like? can you draw
> > one?
>
>
> What?
What words did you not understand in the question?
Boikat
Rolf
Can you refer to the names of some of those "universal knowers"; what
is that they know, what isI t that they recognize?
I AM NOT FAMILIAR WITH ANYTHING OF THE SORT THAT YOU CLAIM HERE, AND I
BELIEVE THERE ARE MANY OTHERS AS WELL THAT WANT TO KNOW WHAT YOU ARE
REFERRING TO AS "UNIVERSALLY KNOWN AN RECOGNIZED KNOWLEDGE."
I BELIEVE YOU ARE BLUFFING AND DO NOT KNOW WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT.
COME ON, RAY, IT IS TIME FOR YOU TO DELIVER!
Robert Carnegie
According to _The Daily Show_ it's an interest shared by Sarah Palin.