Mollisonia is an extinct genus of Cambrian arthropod, noteworthy for being among the first identified with the mouth-legs known as Chelicerae, most famously a trait of arachnids like spiders, and therefore possibly among (or ancestral to) the first chelicerates.
| Mollisonia Temporal range:
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| Scientific classification | |
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| Order: | †Mollisoniida
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| Genus: | †Mollisonia Walcott, 1912
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| Type species | |
| †Mollisonia symmetrica Walcott 1912
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| Synonyms | |
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Houghtonites Raymond, 1931 | |
Species are known from the Burgess Shale, Langston Formation, and Wheeler Shale of North America, as well as the Chengjiang Biota of China.[1] Twenty-one specimens of Mollisonia are known from the Greater Phyllopod bed, where they comprise less than 0.1% of the community.[2] Remains possibly attributable to the genus are also known from the Ordovician Fezouata Formation of Morocco and Bøggild Fjord Formation in Greenland.[3]
An observation published in 2019 suggests this genus is a basal chelicerate, closer to crown group Chelicerata than members of Habeliida. It is suggested to be closely related to Corcorania, Urokodia (formerly[4]), and Thelxiope, which together form the clade Mollisoniida.[5]
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ Zhang, Xingliang; Zhao, Yuanlong; Yang, Ruidong; Shu, Degan (November 2002). "The Burgess Shale arthropod Mollisonia (M. sinica new species): new occurrence from the Middle Cambrian Kaili fauna of southwest China". Journal of Paleontology. 76 (6): 1106–1108. Bibcode:2002JPal...76.1106Z. doi:10.1017/S0022336000057917. ISSN 0022-3360. S2CID 130112985.
- ^ Caron, Jean-Bernard; Jackson, Donald A. (October 2006). "Taphonomy of the Greater Phyllopod Bed community, Burgess Shale". PALAIOS. 21 (5): 451–65. Bibcode:2006Palai..21..451C. doi:10.2110/palo.2003.P05-070R. JSTOR 20173022. S2CID 53646959.
- ^ Peel, John S.; Willman, Sebastian; Pedersen, Stig A. Schack (March 2020). "Unusual preservation of an Ordovician (Floian) arthropod from Peary Land, North Greenland (Laurentia)". PalZ. 94 (1): 41–51. doi:10.1007/s12542-019-00481-y. ISSN 0031-0220.
- ^ Liu, Cong; Fu, Dongjing; Wu, Yu; Zhang, Xingliang (July 2024). "Cambrian euarthropod Urokodia aequalis sheds light on the origin of Artiopoda body plan". iScience: 110443. doi:10.1016/j.isci.2024.110443. PMC 11325232.
- ^ Aria, Cédric; Caron, Jean-Bernard (September 2019). "A middle Cambrian arthropod with chelicerae and proto-book gills". Nature. 573 (7775): 586–589. Bibcode:2019Natur.573..586A. doi:10.1038/s41586-019-1525-4. ISSN 0028-0836. PMID 31511691. S2CID 202550431.
External links
edit- "Mollisonia symmetrica". Burgess Shale Fossil Gallery. Virtual Museum of Canada. 2011. Archived from the original on 2020-11-12.
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