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Title
Central nervous system of a 310-m.y.-old horseshoe crab: Expanding the taphonomic window for nervous system preservation
Author(s)
Publication Date
2021-11-01
Early Online Version
Open Access
Yes
Abstract
The central nervous system (CNS) presents unique insight into the behaviors and ecology of extant and extinct animal groups. However, neurological tissues are delicate and prone to rapid decay, and thus their occurrence as fossils is mostly confined to Cambrian Burgess Shale–type deposits and Cenozoic amber inclusions. We describe an exceptionally preserved CNS in the horseshoe crab <i>Euproops danae</i> from the late Carboniferous (Moscovian) Mazon Creek <i>Konservat-Lagerstätte</i> in Illinois, USA. The <i>E. danae</i> CNS demonstrates that the general prosomal synganglion organization has remained essentially unchanged in horseshoe crabs for >300 m.y., despite substantial morphological and ecological diversification in that time. Furthermore, it reveals that the euarthropod CNS can be preserved by molding in siderite and suggests that further examples may be present in the Mazon Creek fauna. This discovery fills a significant temporal gap in the fossil record of euarthropod CNSs and expands the taphonomic scope for preservation of detailed paleoneuroanatomical data in the Paleozoic to siderite concretion <i>Lagerstätten</i> of marginal marine deposits.
Publication Type
Journal Article
Source of Publication
Geology, 49(11), p. 1381-1385
Publisher
Geological Society of America
Socio-Economic Objective (SEO) 2020
2021-07-26
Place of Publication
United States of America
ISSN
1943-2682
0091-7613
File(s)
Fields of Research (FoR) 2020
Socio-Economic Objective (SEO) 2020
Peer Reviewed
Yes
HERDC Category Description
Peer Reviewed
Yes
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