Abstract

Early Cambrian animal diapause embryos revealed by X-ray tomography

Highlights

  • The fossil record of early animals has documented an early Cambrian explosion of metazoan body plans, evidenced by the stratigraphic first occurrences of fossils of almost all animal phyla in the early Cambrian (Erwin et al, 2011)

  • Our results indicate that these specimens preserve a complex envelope, and an inner body with multicellular structure

  • Biological Affinity of Archaeooides The biological affinity of Archaeooides has been poorly constrained largely because knowledge of its biology was limited to cyst morphology

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Summary

Introduction

The fossil record of early animals has documented an early Cambrian explosion of metazoan body plans, evidenced by the stratigraphic first occurrences of fossils of almost all animal phyla in the early Cambrian (Erwin et al, 2011). Little is known about the embryological evolution of these body plans due to a paucity of fossil embryonic remains of animals. During the past two decades, discoveries of fossil embryos have provided insight into the embryology of early animals and, the evolution of animal development (Bengtson and Yue, 1997; Xiao et al, 1998; Dong et al, 2004; Steiner et al, 2004; Chen et al, 2006; Yin et al, 2007; Yin et al, 2016). Four Cambrian taxa of phosphatized spherical fossils, Archaeooides, Olivooides, Pseudooi­ des, and Markuelia, have all been interpreted as preserving embryonic stages of development (Qian, 1977; Bengtson and Yue, 1997). Its biological affinity remains uncertain because little is known of its internal structure, even though some authors have speculated that it may be an animal egg or embryo (Qian and Bengtson, 1989; Pyle et al, 2006)

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