A late surviving xenopod (Arthropoda) from the Ordovican Period, Wales
Abstract
The Middle Ordovician Llanfallteg Formation has yielded remains of soft-bodied organisms previously known only from Cambrian Burgess Shale-type deposits. A new arthropodEtania howellsorumgen. et sp. nov. is described here, characterized by a semi-circular cephalon, clusters of spinose endites on the endopod and exopods with ovoid distal lobes. These characters are consistent with xenopod affinities, a clade otherwise known exclusively from the Cambrian Period. The discovery ofE. howellsorumdemonstrates that a number of Burgess Shale-type taxa, including xenopods, survived past the Cambrian Period (albeit within a restricted environment) and may have been outcompeted during the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event (GOBE).
- Publication:
-
Geological Magazine
- Pub Date:
- September 2015
- DOI:
- 10.1017/S001675681400065X
- Bibcode:
- 2015GeoM..152..942L