Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/31372
Title: Central nervous system of a 310-m.y.-old horseshoe crab: Expanding the taphonomic window for nervous system preservation
Contributor(s): Bicknell, Russell D C  (author)orcid ; Ortega-Hernández, Javier (author); Edgecombe, Gregory D (author); Gaines, Robert R (author); Paterson, John R  (author)orcid 
Publication Date: 2021-11-01
Early Online Version: 2021-07-26
Open Access: Yes
DOI: 10.1130/G49193.1
Handle Link: https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/31372
Abstract: The central nervous system (CNS) presents unique insight into the behaviors and ecology of extant and extinct animal groups. However, neurological tissues are delicate and prone to rapid decay, and thus their occurrence as fossils is mostly confined to Cambrian Burgess Shale–type deposits and Cenozoic amber inclusions. We describe an exceptionally preserved CNS in the horseshoe crab Euproops danae from the late Carboniferous (Moscovian) Mazon Creek Konservat-Lagerstätte in Illinois, USA. The E. danae CNS demonstrates that the general prosomal synganglion organization has remained essentially unchanged in horseshoe crabs for >300 m.y., despite substantial morphological and ecological diversification in that time. Furthermore, it reveals that the euarthropod CNS can be preserved by molding in siderite and suggests that further examples may be present in the Mazon Creek fauna. This discovery fills a significant temporal gap in the fossil record of euarthropod CNSs and expands the taphonomic scope for preservation of detailed paleoneuroanatomical data in the Paleozoic to siderite concretion Lagerstätten of marginal marine deposits.
Publication Type: Journal Article
Grant Details: ARC/DP200102005
Source of Publication: Geology, 49(11), p. 1381-1385
Publisher: Geological Society of America
Place of Publication: United States of America
ISSN: 1943-2682
0091-7613
Fields of Research (FoR) 2020: 310306 Palaeoecology
370506 Palaeontology (incl. palynology)
Socio-Economic Objective (SEO) 2020: 280107 Expanding knowledge in the earth sciences
Peer Reviewed: Yes
HERDC Category Description: C1 Refereed Article in a Scholarly Journal
Appears in Collections:Journal Article
School of Environmental and Rural Science
School of Science and Technology

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