''Mosineia'' is a
genus of
euthycarcinoid
Euthycarcinoidea are an enigmatic group of extinct possibly amphibious arthropods that ranged from Cambrian to Triassic times. Fossils are known from Europe, North America, Argentina, Australia and Antarctica.
Description
The euthycarcinoid body ...
arthropod
Arthropods (, (gen. ποδός)) are invertebrate animals with an exoskeleton, a segmented body, and paired jointed appendages. Arthropods form the phylum Arthropoda. They are distinguished by their jointed limbs and cuticle made of chitin, o ...
s that lived on tidal flats of
Laurentia at what is now central
Wisconsin from the Middle
Cambrian
The Cambrian Period ( ; sometimes symbolized Ꞓ) was the first geological period of the Paleozoic Era, and of the Phanerozoic Eon. The Cambrian lasted 53.4 million years from the end of the preceding Ediacaran Period 538.8 million years ago ( ...
to the Late Cambrian. It contains a single species, ''Mosineia macnaughtoni''. Associated trace fossil evidence suggests that this genus spent some of its time
subaerial In natural science, subaerial (literally "under the air"), has been used since 1833,[Subaerial](_blank)
in the Merriam ...
ly, possibly to mate and to feed on the microbial mats that blanketed the beaches. The genus is named after
Mosinee---the city in Marathon County, Wisconsin, near which the fossils were found. The collecting site is known as
Blackberry Hill
Blackberry Hill is a Konservat-Lagerstätte of Cambrian age located within the Elk Mound Group in Marathon County, Wisconsin. It is found in a series of quarries and outcrops that are notable for their large concentration of exceptionally prese ...
, which is a well known
Konservat-Lagerstätte that produces abundant exceptionally preserved
fossils
A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved in ...
.
History of discovery
The discovery of ''Mosineia'' was a milestone in geologic history. Since the mid-1800s, trackways named ''
Protichnites
''Protichnites'' is an ichnogenus of trace fossil consisting of the imprints made by the walking activity of certain arthropods. It consists of two rows of tracks and a medial furrow between the two rows. This furrow, which may be broken, set at ...
'' (Greek for "first footprints") had been found on
Cambrian
The Cambrian Period ( ; sometimes symbolized Ꞓ) was the first geological period of the Paleozoic Era, and of the Phanerozoic Eon. The Cambrian lasted 53.4 million years from the end of the preceding Ediacaran Period 538.8 million years ago ( ...
tidal flat strata in North America. Whatever animal produced them was one of the first to emerge from the sea; however, the identity of that animal remained unknown. The new fossils, found in the late 1900s and early 2000s, including body fossils of the animal itself (''Mosineia'') and fossils linking that animal to the trackways, thus solved a mystery that had lasted over 150 years.
References
External links
Web page from This View of Life--A New Look at the First Footprints on LandArticle in MAPS Digest--The First Land-Walkers: Mystery Solved
{{Taxonbar, from1=Q77624431, from2=Q85786407
Paleontology in Wisconsin
Fossil taxa described in 2010
Cambrian arthropods of North America
Cambrian genus extinctions