Yicaris dianensisft. Jo WolfeHave you ever stopped to think about where shrimp and crabs came from?
Yicaris dianensisft. Jo WolfeHave you ever stopped to think about where shrimp and crabs came from? Jo Wolfe has the answer.She’s interested in ancient organisms and how they evolved, a field of science that requires an extensive knowledge of anatomy, genomics, and geology.“Evolutionary biologists call me a geologist. Geologists call me a molecular biologist. Molecular biologists call me an evolutionary biologist”, she describes herself.Though the word fossil brings to mind the majestic dinosaur bones, she prefers the finer things in life — tiny crustaceans.Among them is Yicaris, an aquatic creature that lived around 520 million years ago back in the Cambrian Period, in what is now South China. It is the oldest known fossil of the very diverse group of crustaceans, which includes shrimp, crabs, barnacles, and many others including insects.“It is absolutely amazing that it is even preserved at all, because the known fossils are less than 1 mm in length! The limbs, hairs on the limbs, and the eyes are all preserved,“ Jo says.The exquisite remains are not flattened like most other fossils, making it easier to tell the body parts from one another. Among the key features are the series of bumpy outgrowths on its limbs called epipodites, which are a type of respiration organ in living crustaceans.By comparing these details, scientists figured out that these fossils, in fact, were baby crustaceans! This is what previously confused researchers who were trying to figure out what the crustacean family tree actually looks like.“It was because we were comparing fossil larvae to living adults, apples to oranges,” Jo says of her PhD research.Only after correcting this comparison, Jo and her colleagues found out that Yicaris is likely related to the group called branchiopods, which includes water fleas and the popular pet, sea monkeys.Though she managed to crack this particular mystery, our knowledge is far from complete. Only when we find more remnants of the ancient crustaceans, will we find out more about their peculiar past.“I know there are more fossils waiting in China and elsewhere,” Jo concludes.—Joanna “Jo” Wolfe is a postdoctoral researcher at MIT. Get to know Jo, very old critters, and marine life.Twitter · Publications—My main blog · Ko-fi · Patreon -- source link
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