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Amiskwia is a large Cambrian gnathiferan with complex gnathostomulid-like jaws.

ABSTRACT: Phylogenomic studies have greatly improved our understanding of the animal tree of life but the relationships of many clades remain ambiguous. Here we show that the rare soft-bodied animal Amiskwia from the Cambrian of Canada and China, which has variously been considered a chaetognath, a nemertine, allied to molluscs, or a problematica, is related to gnathiferans. New specimens from the Burgess Shale (British Columbia, Canada) preserve a complex pharyngeal jaw apparatus composed of a pair of elements with teeth most similar to gnathostomulids. Amiskwia demonstrates that primitive spiralians were large and unsegmented, had a coelom, and were probably active nekto-benthic scavengers or predators. Secondary simplification and miniaturisation events likely occurred in response to shifting ecologies and adaptations to specialised planktonic habitats.

SUBMITTER: Caron JB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6499802 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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<i>Amiskwia</i> is a large Cambrian gnathiferan with complex gnathostomulid-like jaws.

Caron Jean-Bernard JB   Cheung Brittany B  

Communications biology 20190503

Phylogenomic studies have greatly improved our understanding of the animal tree of life but the relationships of many clades remain ambiguous. Here we show that the rare soft-bodied animal <i>Amiskwia</i> from the Cambrian of Canada and China, which has variously been considered a chaetognath, a nemertine, allied to molluscs, or a problematica, is related to gnathiferans. New specimens from the Burgess Shale (British Columbia, Canada) preserve a complex pharyngeal jaw apparatus composed of a pai  ...[more]