Preservation of three-dimensional anatomy in phosphatized fossil arthropods enriches evolutionary inference.

ABSTRACT: External and internal morphological characters of extant and fossil organisms are crucial to establishing their systematic position, ecological role and evolutionary trends. The lack of internal characters and soft-tissue preservation in many arthropod fossils, however, impedes comprehensive phylogenetic analyses and species descriptions according to taxonomic standards for Recent organisms. We found well-preserved three-dimensional anatomy in mineralized arthropods from Paleogene fissure fillings and demonstrate the value of these fossils by utilizing digitally reconstructed anatomical structure of a hister beetle. The new anatomical data facilitate a refinement of the species diagnosis and allowed us to reject a previous hypothesis of close phylogenetic relationship to an extant congener

SUBMITTER: Schwermann AH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4758943 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature