500-million-year-old fossilized brains of Stanleycaris prompt a rethink of the evolution of insects and spiders
Published Date: 7/8/2022
Source: phys.org
Royal Ontario Museum revealed new research based on a cache of fossils that contains the brain and nervous system of a half-billion-year-old marine predator from the Burgess Shale called Stanleycaris. Stanleycaris belonged to an ancient, extinct offshoot of the arthropod evolutionary tree called Radiodonta, distantly related to modern insects and spiders. These findings shed light on the evolution of the arthropod brain, vision, and head structure. The results were announced in the paper, "A three-eyed radiodont with fossilized neuroanatomy informs the origin of the arthropod head and segmentation," published in the journal Current Biology.