Mineralized belemnoid cephalic cartilage from the late Triassic Polzberg Konservat-Lagerstatte (Austria).

ABSTRACT: Although hyaline cartilage is widely distributed in various invertebrate groups such as sabellid polychaetes, molluscs (cephalopods, gastropods) and a chelicerate arthropod group (horseshoe crabs), the enigmatic relationship and distribution of cartilage in taxonomic groups remains to be explained. It can be interpreted as a convergent trait in animal evolution and thus does not seem to be a vertebrate invention. Due to the poor fossil record of cartilaginous structures, occurrences of mineralized fossil cartilages are important for evolutionary biology and paleontology. Although the biochemical composition of recent cephalopod cartilage differs from vertebrate cartilage, histologically the cartilages of these animal groups resemble one another remarkably. In this study we present fossil m

SUBMITTER: Lukeneder P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9020720 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature