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Nereocaris
''Nereocaris'' is an extinct genus of bivalved hymenocarine arthropod that lived in the Cambrian aged Burgess Shale in what is now British Columbia around 506 million years ago. Two species are known. History and nomenclature The holotype and paratype were found in the Burgess Shale Lagerstätte, in the Tulip Beds; it was later described in 2012, by Legg ''et al,'' as a basal hymenocarine, naming the type species ''Neroecaris exilis.'' In 2013, a second ''Nereocaris briggsi'' was described by Legg and Caron. The generic name, ''Nereocaris'' comes from Greek: , Nereus the Greek god of waves; and , "shrimp" or "crab", meaning "Nereus's shrimp". The specific name ''exilis'' comes from Latin, meaning slim; while the second species' name ''briggsi'' means "of Briggs", referring to professor Derek Briggs, an expert on Cambrian arthropods. Description According to the diagnosis of Legg and Caron (2013), the genus including both species is diagnosed by the presence of two latera ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hymenocarina
Hymenocarina is an Order (biology), order of extinct marine arthropods known from the Cambrian. They possess bivalved carapaces, typically with exposed posteriors. Members of the group are morphologically diverse and had a variety of ecologies, including as filter feeders and as predators. Recent research has generally considered them to be stem or crown group members of Mandibulata, due to the presence of Mandible (arthropod mouthpart), mandibles in well-preserved species. Taxonomy Hymenocarines are characterized by the combination of the following characters: bivalved, convex carapace covering Cephalothorax, cephalothoracic (combined head and thorax) region; cephalothorax bearing multisegmented antennae (though as an exception antennae are absent in ''Odaraia'') and rounded Mandible (arthropod mouthpart), mandibles and likely Maxilla (arthropod mouthpart), maxillae, post maxillae limbs with spiny, subdivided basis and Arthropod leg, endopods (lower, leg-like parts) with well-d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wuliuan
The Wuliuan stage is the fifth stage of the Cambrian, and the first stage of the Miaolingian Series of the Cambrian. It was formally defined by the International Commission on Stratigraphy in 2018. Its base is defined by the first appearance of the trilobite species '' Oryctocephalus indicus''; it ends with the beginning of the Drumian Stage, marked by the first appearance of the trilobite '' Ptychagnostus atavus'' around million years ago. The 'golden spike' that formally defines the base of the age is driven into the Wuliu-Zengjiayan (乌溜-曾家崖) section of the Kaili formation, near Balang Village in the Miaoling Mountains, Guizhou, China. GSSP Three sections were discussed as GSSP candidates: the Wuliu-Zengjiayan section near Balang in Guizhou province (China), a section on Split Mountain in Nevada (USA) and the "Molodo river section" along the Molodo river (Sakha Republic, Russia). The Wuliu-Zengjiayan section is an outcrop of the Kaili Formation in the Wuliu quarr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Holotype
A holotype (Latin: ''holotypus'') is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of several examples, but explicitly designated as the holotype. Under the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN), a holotype is one of several kinds of name-bearing types. In the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (ICN) and ICZN, the definitions of types are similar in intent but not identical in terminology or underlying concept. For example, the holotype for the butterfly '' Plebejus idas longinus'' is a preserved specimen of that subspecies, held by the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University. In botany and mycology, an isotype is a duplicate of the holotype, generally pieces from the same individual plant or samples from the same genetic individual. A holotype is not necessarily "ty ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Burgess Shale Fossils
The fossils of the Burgess Shale, like the Burgess Shale itself, are fossils that formed around 505 million years ago in the mid-Cambrian, Cambrian period. They were discovered in Canada in 1886, and Charles Doolittle Walcott collected over 65,000 specimens in a series of field trips up to the alpine site from 1909 to 1924. After a period of neglect from the 1930s to the early 1960s, new excavations and re-examinations of Walcott's collection continue to reveal new species, and statistical analysis suggests that additional discoveries will continue for the foreseeable future. Stephen Jay Gould's 1989 book ''Wonderful Life (book), Wonderful Life'' describes the history of discovery up to the early 1980s, although his analysis of the implications for evolution has been contested. The fossil beds are in a series of shale layers, averaging and totalling about in thickness. These layers were deposited against the face of a high undersea limestone cliff. All these features were ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cambrian Arthropods
The Cambrian ( ) is the first geological period of the Paleozoic Era, and the Phanerozoic Eon. The Cambrian lasted 51.95 million years from the end of the preceding Ediacaran period 538.8 Ma (million years ago) to the beginning of the Ordovician Period 486.85 Ma. Most of the continents lay in the southern hemisphere surrounded by the vast Panthalassa, Panthalassa Ocean. The assembly of Gondwana during the Ediacaran and early Cambrian led to the development of new Convergent boundary, convergent plate boundaries and Volcanic arc, continental-margin arc magmatism along its margins that helped drive up global temperatures. Laurentia lay across the equator, separated from Gondwana by the opening Iapetus Ocean. The Cambrian marked a profound change in Life, life on Earth; prior to the Period, the majority of living organisms were small, Unicellular organism, unicellular and poorly preserved. Complex, multicellular organisms gradually became more common during the Ediacaran, but it ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Derek Briggs
Derek Ernest Gilmor Briggs (born 10 January 1950) is an Irish palaeontologist and taphonomist based at Yale University. Briggs is one of three palaeontologists, along with Harry Blackmore Whittington and Simon Conway Morris, who were key in the reinterpretation of the fossils of the Burgess Shale. He is the Yale University G. Evelyn Hutchinson Professor of Geology and Geophysics, Curator of Invertebrate Paleontology at Yale's Peabody Museum of Natural History, and former Director of the Peabody Museum. Education Briggs was educated at Trinity College Dublin where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Geology in 1972. He went on to the University of Cambridge to work under British palaeontologist Harry Blackmore Whittington. He was awarded a PhD in 1976 on ''Arthropods from the Burgess Shale, Middle Cambrian, Canada''. Research and career While at the University of Cambridge, Briggs worked on the fossils of the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale of British Columbia alon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nereus
In Greek mythology, Nereus ( ; ) was the eldest son of Pontus (the Sea) and Gaia ( the Earth), with Pontus himself being a son of Gaia. Nereus and Doris became the parents of 50 daughters (the Nereids) and a son ( Nerites), with whom Nereus lived in the Aegean Sea. Name The name Nereus is absent from Homer's epics; the god's name in the Iliad is the descriptive , and in the Odyssey the combination of and .; ; Besides Nereus and Proteus, the descriptive "Old Man of the Sea" was used for other water deities in Greek mythology who share several traits, among them Phorcys, Glaucus, and perhaps Triton. It is suggested that the "Old Man of the Sea" had at one time played a cosmogonic role comparable to that of Oceanus and could have received different names in different places. It is not known whether the name Nereus was known to Homer or not, but the name of the Nereids is attested before it and can be found in the Iliad. Since Nereus only has relevance as the father o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lagerstätte
A Fossil-Lagerstätte (, from ''Lager'' 'storage, lair' '' Stätte'' 'place'; plural ''Lagerstätten'') is a sedimentary deposit that preserves an exceptionally high amount of palaeontological information. ''Konzentrat-Lagerstätten'' preserve a high concentration of fossils, while ''Konservat-Lagerstätten'' offer exceptional fossil preservation, sometimes including preserved soft tissues. ''Konservat-Lagerstätten'' may have resulted from carcass burial in an anoxic environment with minimal bacteria, thus delaying the decomposition of both gross and fine biological features until long after a durable impression was created in the surrounding matrix. ''Fossil-Lagerstätten'' spans geological time from the Neoproterozoic era to the present. Worldwide, some of the best examples of near-perfect fossilization are the Cambrian Maotianshan shales and Burgess Shale, the Ordovician Soom Shale, the Silurian Waukesha Biota, the Devonian Hunsrück Slates and Gogo Formation, the Ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paratype
In zoology and botany, a paratype is a specimen of an organism that helps define what the scientific name of a species and other taxon actually represents, but it is not the holotype (and in botany is also neither an isotype (biology), isotype nor a syntype). Often there is more than one paratype. Paratypes are usually held in museum research collections. The exact meaning of the term ''paratype'' when it is used in zoology is not the same as the meaning when it is used in botany. In both cases however, this term is used in conjunction with ''holotype''. Zoology In zoological nomenclature, a paratype is officially defined as "Each specimen of a type series other than the holotype.", ''International Code of Zoological Nomenclature'' In turn, this definition relies on the definition of a "type series". A type series is the material (specimens of organisms) that was cited in the original publication of the new species or subspecies, and was not excluded from being type material ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, forests, lakes, mountains, inland deserts and grassy plains. British Columbia borders the province of Alberta to the east; the territories of Yukon and Northwest Territories to the north; the U.S. states of Washington (state), Washington, Idaho and Montana to the south, and Alaska to the northwest. With an estimated population of over 5.7million as of 2025, it is Canada's Population of Canada by province and territory, third-most populous province. The capital of British Columbia is Victoria, British Columbia, Victoria, while the province's largest city is Vancouver. Vancouver and its suburbs together make up List of census metropolitan areas and agglomerations in Canada, the third-largest metropolit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Animalia
Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms in the Biology, biological Kingdom (biology), kingdom Animalia (). With few exceptions, animals heterotroph, consume organic material, Cellular respiration#Aerobic respiration, breathe oxygen, have myocytes and are motility, able to move, can reproduce sexually, and grow from a hollow sphere of Cell (biology), cells, the blastula, during embryonic development. Animals form a clade, meaning that they arose from a single common ancestor. Over 1.5 million extant taxon, living animal species have been species description, described, of which around 1.05 million are insects, over 85,000 are molluscs, and around 65,000 are vertebrates. It has been estimated there are as many as 7.77 million animal species on Earth. Animal body lengths range from to . They have complex ecologies and biological interaction, interactions with each other and their environments, forming intricate food webs. The scientific study of animals is known as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Burgess Shale
The Burgess Shale is a fossil-bearing deposit exposed in the Canadian Rockies of British Columbia, Canada. It is famous for the exceptional preservation of the soft parts of its fossils. At old (middle Cambrian), it is one of the earliest fossil beds containing soft-part imprints. The rock unit is a black shale and crops out at a number of localities near the town of Field in Yoho National Park and the Kicking Horse Pass. Another outcrop is in Kootenay National Park 42 km to the south. History and significance The Burgess Shale was discovered by palaeontologist Charles Walcott on 30 August 1909, towards the end of the season's fieldwork. He returned in 1910 with his sons, daughter, and wife, establishing a quarry on the flanks of Fossil Ridge. The significance of soft-bodied preservation, and the range of organisms he recognised as new to science, led him to return to the quarry almost every year until 1924. At that point, aged 74, he had amassed over 65,000 s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
