A frontal view of Pauline avibella, an unusual tiny fossil crustacean from 425 million years ago retaining soft body parts as well as its shell, including limbs, eyes, gills and alimentary system.
A Yale scientist and colleagues in Britain have found a highly unusual ancient marine fossil that retains soft body parts as well as its shell, including limbs, eyes, gills and alimentary system. The fossil represents a new species of ostracod, a tiny crustacean related to crabs, lobsters and shrimps. "Fossil ostracods often provide evidence of the relative ages of the rocks in which they occur, but it is very difficult to determine their relationship to living forms because only the shell is normally preserved," said Derek E. G. Briggs, director of Yale's Peabody Museum of Natural History and a co-author of the research. "This 425-million-year-old new form is remarkable in preserving the limbs and other anatomical features as well." Briggs and colleagues at several British institutions reported their findings Dec. 12 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. David J. Siveter of the University of Leicester is lead author. The crustacean, which the scientists have named Pauline avibella , provides them with unusually detailed information about an animal dating from the Silurian Period.
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