Artistic reconstruction of Kylinxia. Credit: X. Wang
Phys.org has a story about the evolution of insects and crustaceans. Kylinxia zhangi is an early arthropod related to insects and crustaceans. It lived about 520 million years ago during the Cambrian Period. It was part of the famous Chengjiang fossil locality, which is located in the Yunnan Province in southern China. A team which consisted of researchers from the University of Leicester, Yunnan Key Laboratory for Paleobiology and the Institute of Paleontology at Yunnan University, Chengjiang Fossil Museum, and the Natural History Museum in London, found that K. zhangi reveals clues to the evolution of the arthropod head. The research was published in the journal Current Biology.
Although there are plenty of arthropods in the fossil record—most famously the trilobites—the vast majority only preserve their hard skeletons. Because the new Chinese material is preserved nearly complete, the team were able to image the head of Kylinxia, identifying six segments: the front one bearing eyes, the second with a pair of large grasping limbs, and the other four each bearing a pair of jointed limbs.
Lead author of the study Robert O'Flynn, a Ph.D. student at the University of Leicester School of Geography, Geology and the Environment, said, "The preservation of the fossil animal is amazing. After CT-scanning we can digitally turn it around and literally stare into the face of something that was alive over 500 million years ago. As we spun the animal around, we could see that its head possesses six segments, just as in many living arthropods."
Professor Mark Williams, Robert's primary supervisor at the University of Leicester, said, "Kylinxia, and the Chengjiang biota whence it came, are instrumental to building our understanding of early euarthropod evolution. I like to think that similar discoveries will continue to be made by Robert."
