IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v417y2002i6891d10.1038_nature00805.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Paired gill slits in a fossil with a calcite skeleton

Author

Listed:
  • Patrício Dominguez

    (The Natural History Museum
    Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Ciudad Universitaría)

  • Antone G. Jacobson

    (Patterson Labs, MCDB, The University of Texas)

  • Richard P. S. Jefferies

    (The Natural History Museum)

Abstract

The chordates, hemichordates (such as acorn worms) and echinoderms (such as starfish) comprise the group Deuterostomia, well established as monophyletic1,2. Among extant deuterostomes, a skeleton in which each plate has the crystallographic structure of a single crystal of calcite is characteristic of echinoderms and is always associated with radial symmetry and never with gill slits. Among fossils, however, such a skeleton sometimes occurs without radial symmetry. This is true of Jaekelocarpus oklahomensis, from the Upper Carboniferous of Oklahoma, USA, which, being externally almost bilaterally symmetrical, is traditionally placed in the group Mitrata (Ordovician to Carboniferous periods, 530–280 million years ago), by contrast with the bizarrely asymmetrical Cornuta (Cambrian to Ordovician periods, 540 to 440 million years ago). Using computer X-ray microtomography, we describe the anatomy of Jaekelocarpus in greater detail than formerly possible, reveal evidence of paired gill slits internally and interpret its functional anatomy. On this basis we suggest its phylogenetic position within the deuterostomes.

Suggested Citation

  • Patrício Dominguez & Antone G. Jacobson & Richard P. S. Jefferies, 2002. "Paired gill slits in a fossil with a calcite skeleton," Nature, Nature, vol. 417(6891), pages 841-844, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:417:y:2002:i:6891:d:10.1038_nature00805
    DOI: 10.1038/nature00805
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature00805
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/nature00805?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:417:y:2002:i:6891:d:10.1038_nature00805. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.