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The world’s oldest brain was found in the remains of a third shrimp that roamed the ocean more than 500 million years ago.
Its entire central nervous system is still visible, providing unprecedented insight into the ancestors of insects, spiders, and crustaceans.
It’s called Stanleycaris hirpex and it’s called “a nightmare”. It had two eyes on the “stem”. Larger eyes and pointed claws in the middle.
It lived during a Cambrian “explosion,” a period of rapid evolution in which a major group of animals appears in the fossil record.
The creature was a member of the radiodonta, the apex predator that was the “great white shark” at the time.
More than 3 feet long, they were a type of primitive arthropod, crawlers with attached limbs.
Despite Stenlikaris’s strange appearance, it is the contents of his head that most excites scientists.
Brain and nerves are still preserved in 84 individuals found in the Burgess Shale, a prehistoric burial ground in Canadian Rocky 506 million years later.
Lead author Joseph Moiziuk, a doctoral student at the University of Toronto, said:
“The details are so clear that it’s like seeing an animal killed yesterday.”
The new sample shows what the ancient nervous system was like. We rarely find fossilized soft tissues, but this is unique.
Most fossils are bones, which are hard body parts like teeth and exoskeletons.
The brain and nerves are made up of fatty substances that normally do not survive.
The central nervous system regulates all neural and motor functions. In vertebrates, it consists of the brain and spinal cord.
In arthropods, the brain becomes more condensed into a chain of interconnected masses of nervous tissue that resembles a series of beads.
Stenlikaris’s brain consisted of two segments, the forebrain and the heavy brain.
They connect to the eye and front claws, respectively, and control the visual and antennal signals of extant arthropods.
Moiziuk, based at the Royal Ontario Museum, said: “We conclude that the two-segmented head and brain are deeply embedded in the arthropod lineage.
“That evolution may have preceded the brain, which is divided into three segments that characterize all living members of this diverse animal phylum.”
In modern arthropods, such as bats and other insects, the brain also has a three-headed brain.
It connects to the lips, the mobile upper lip, and integrates sensory information from the other two sheets of the brain. Additional sections give fundamental results.
Repeated copies of many arthropod organs are found on their segmented bodies. Determining how they are ordered is the key to understanding diversification.
Moiziuk said: “These fossils are like the Rosetta Stones and help connect the characteristics of radiodonts and other early fossil arthropods with their surviving group counterparts.”
Stanleycaris had a large central cup in front of his head, as well as a pair of stalked eyes. This is a feature never before seen in radiodonts.
Moiziuk’s supervisor and co-author, Professor Jean-Bernard Caron, said:
“This emphasizes that these animals were stranger than we thought. Furthermore, early arthropods have already evolved many complex visual systems like modern relatives. It also shows that this was the case.”
“Most radiodonts are known only from scattered pieces, so this discovery is an important advance in understanding how they looked and lived,” he added.
During the Cambrian, radiodonts were one of the largest animals. Anomalocaris, called the “strange wonder,” has grown into a sea monster, at least 3 feet 3 inches.
Below 8 inches, Stanleycaris was much smaller. But he will be an impressive killer, at least three times more than most competitors.
Radiodonta means “radiate teeth”. The rare animal is named after its irregular, round jaw. They adapted to the dim light of the deep sea.
The sophisticated senses and nervous system of Stenlikaris would have made it possible to effectively distinguish small prey in the dark.
Moiziuk added: A nightmare for the little hellish denizens unlucky enough to cross the street.
The Current Biology work is based on an analysis of an unpublished collection of 268 Stanleycaris specimens.
Most were collected in the 1980s and 1990s at the famous Walcott Quarry in Yoho National Park, British Columbia.
They are part of an extensive collection of Burgess Shari World Heritage fossils that is housed at the Royal Ontario Museum.
Source: Metro
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