''Youti'' (meaning "larva") is an

extinct Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...

genus of dinocaridid

arthropods Arthropods ( ) are invertebrates in the phylum Arthropoda. They possess an arthropod exoskeleton, exoskeleton with a cuticle made of chitin, often Mineralization (biology), mineralised with calcium carbonate, a body with differentiated (Metam ...

from the

Cambrian 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 Ordov ...

Maotianshan Shales The Maotianshan Shales () are a series of Early Cambrian sedimentary deposits in the Chiungchussu Formation or Heilinpu Formation, famous for their '' Konservat Lagerstätten'', deposits known for the exceptional preservation of fossilized orga ...

of Yunnan Province, China. It was described after using computational approaches to visualize the internal details preserved inside the fossil. The genus contains a single species, ''Y. yuanshi'', known from a larval individual preserved in a

carbonate A carbonate is a salt of carbonic acid, (), characterized by the presence of the carbonate ion, a polyatomic ion with the formula . The word "carbonate" may also refer to a carbonate ester, an organic compound containing the carbonate group ...

nodule Nodule may refer to: * Nodule (geology), a small rock or mineral cluster * Manganese nodule, a metallic concretion found on the seafloor *Nodule (medicine), a small aggregation of cells *Root nodule Root nodules are found on the roots of plants, ...

. The internal organs were well-preserved by the fossilization process and it was possible to study the structure using synchrotron

scanning electron microscopy A scanning electron microscope (SEM) is a type of electron microscope that produces images of a sample by scanning the surface with a focused beam of electrons. The electrons interact with atoms in the sample, producing various signals that ...

and

X-ray computed tomography An X-ray (also known in many languages as Röntgen radiation) is a form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength shorter than those of ultraviolet rays and longer than those of gamma rays. Roughly, X-rays have a wavelength ran ...

. The specimen shows

lobopod Lobopodians are members of the informal group Lobopodia (), or the formally erected phylum Lobopoda Cavalier-Smith (1998). They are panarthropods with stubby legs called lobopods, a term which may also be used as a common name of this group as ...

legs, and a

onychophora Onychophora (from , , "claws"; and , , "to carry"), commonly known as velvet worms (for their velvety texture and somewhat wormlike appearance) or more ambiguously as peripatus (after the first described genus, ''Peripatus''), is a phylum of el ...

-like peripheral

haemolymph Hemolymph, or haemolymph, is a fluid, similar to the blood in invertebrates, that circulates in the inside of the arthropod's body, remaining in direct contact with the animal's tissues. It is composed of a fluid plasma in which hemolymph ce ...

system. Based on its anatomical characteristics, Smith et al. place the species in the arthropod clade containing ''

Anomalocaris ''Anomalocaris'' (from Ancient Greek , meaning "unlike", and , meaning "shrimp", with the intended meaning "unlike other shrimp") is an extinct genus of radiodont, an order of early-diverging stem-group marine arthropods. It is best known fro ...

'', ''

Opabinia ''Opabinia regalis'' is an extinct, stem group marine arthropod found in the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale Lagerstätte (505 million years ago) of British Columbia. ''Opabinia'' was a soft-bodied animal, measuring up to 7 cm in body length ...

'', ''

Pambdelurion ''Pambdelurion'' is an extinct genus of Panarthropoda, panarthropod from the Cambrian aged Sirius Passet site in northern Greenland. Like the morphologically similar ''Kerygmachela'' from the same locality, ''Pambdelurion'' is thought to be closel ...

'' and ''

Kerygmachela ''Kerygmachela kierkegaardi'' is a Kerygmachelidae, kerygmachelid Lobopodia#Gilled lobopodians, gilled lobopodian from the Cambrian Stage 3 aged Sirius Passet Lagerstätte in northern Greenland. Its anatomy strongly suggests that it, along with i ...

''.

References

External links

* Dinocaridida Cambrian arthropods of Asia Cambrian China Fossil taxa described in 2024 {{paleo-arthropod-stub