Tia Ghose, LiveScience Staff Writer
Date: 27 February 2013 Time: 01:00 PM ET
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.
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| CREDIT: Yie Jang ( |
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."
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