ORCID Profile
0000-0003-1922-9836
Current Organisations
University of Adelaide
,
South Australian Museum
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Palaeoecology | Palaeontology (incl. Palynology) | Phylogeny and Comparative Analysis | Ecology | Animal Structure and Function | Geology | Sedimentology
Conserving Natural Heritage | Expanding Knowledge in the Biological Sciences | Expanding Knowledge in the Earth Sciences | Documentation of Undescribed Flora and Fauna |
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 03-2018
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 02-12-2021
DOI: 10.1017/S0016756820001259
Abstract: Studies that reveal detailed information about trilobite growth, particularly early developmental stages, are crucial for improving our understanding of the phylogenetic relationships within this iconic group of fossil arthropods. Here we document an essentially complete ontogeny of the trilobite Redlichia cf. versabunda from the Cambrian Series 2 (late Stage 4) Ramsay Limestone of Yorke Peninsula in South Australia, including some of the best-preserved protaspides (the earliest biomineralized trilobite larval stage) known for any Cambrian trilobite. These protaspid stages exhibit similar morphological characteristics to many other taxa within the Suborder Redlichiina, especially to closely related species such as Metaredlichia cylindrica from the early Cambrian period of China. Morphological patterns observed across early developmental stages of different groups within the Order Redlichiida are discussed. Although redlichiine protaspides exhibit similar overall morphologies, certain ontogenetic characters within this suborder have potential phylogenetic signal, with different superfamilies characterized by unique trait combinations in these early growth stages.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 12-06-2020
Publisher: Polska Akademia Nauk Instytut Paleobiologii (Institute of Paleobiology, Polish Academy of Sciences)
Date: 06-2011
Publisher: The Royal Society
Date: 15-12-2021
Abstract: The exceptional fossil record of trilobites provides our best window on developmental processes in early euarthropods, but data on growth dynamics are limited. Here, we analyse post-embryonic axial growth in the Cambrian trilobite Estaingia bilobata from the Emu Bay Shale, South Australia. Using threshold models, we show that abrupt changes in growth trajectories of different body sections occurred in two phases, closely associated with the anamorphic/epimorphic and meraspid/holaspid transitions. These changes are similar to the progression to sexual maturity seen in certain extant euarthropods and suggest that the onset of maturity coincided with the commencement of the holaspid period. We also conduct hypothesis testing to reveal the likely controls of observed axial growth gradients and suggest that size may better explain growth patterns than moult stage. The two phases of allometric change in E. bilobata , as well as probable differing growth regulation in the earliest post-embryonic stages, suggest that observed body segmentation patterns in this trilobite were the result of a complex series of changing growth controls that characterized different ontogenetic intervals. This indicates that trilobite development is more complex than previously thought, even in early members of the clade.
Publisher: Czech Geological Survey
Date: 30-09-2010
Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Date: 04-12-2020
Abstract: Fossil eyes show that some early marine arthropods had acute vision and were capable of functioning at different light levels.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 06-2017
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 18-02-2021
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Date: 2014
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 03-2018
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 02-01-2014
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 09-02-2023
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 2023
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 28-01-2019
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 04-04-2018
DOI: 10.1017/JPA.2017.142
Abstract: Despite 70 years of study, Dickinsonia remains one of the Ediacara biota’s most enigmatic taxa with both morphological characters and phylogenetic affinities still debated. A large population of relatively small Dickinsonia costata present on a semi-contiguous surface from the Crisp Gorge fossil locality in the Flinders Ranges (South Australia) provides an opportunity to investigate this taxon in its juvenile form. This population supports earlier findings that suggest D . costata ’s early growth was isometric, based on the relationship between measured variables of length and width. The number of body units increases with length, but at a decreasing rate. A correlation between a previously described physical feature, present as a shrinkage rim partially surrounding some specimens and a novel, raised lip in some specimens, suggests that both features may have been the result of a physical contraction in response to the burial process, rather than due to a gradual loss of mass during early diagenesis. A marked protuberance in 15% of the population is also noted in limited specimens within the South Australian Museum collections and appears to be present only in juvenile D . costata . Both the abundance and narrow size range of this population support the notion that Dickinsonia was a hardy opportunist, capable of rapid establishment and growth on relatively immature textured organic-mat substrates.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 04-03-2013
DOI: 10.1111/PALA.12029
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 10-2018
Publisher: Geological Society of London
Date: 18-11-2018
Abstract: The early Late Ordovician (Sandbian 1) representatives of the Tafilalt Biota in the locality of Bou Nemrou (Jbel Tjarfaïouine) provide ex les of fossil preservation in medium-grained sandstones with abundant microbially induced sedimentary structures. The recorded trilobite assemblage comprises 11 species of ten genera, among which one is new ( Placoparia africana Pereira & Gutiérrez-Marco, sp. nov.) and four others previously regarded as endemic to the locality are considered to be synonymys of species already described from Bohemia. The oldest representative of the illaenid genus Cekovia is recorded, revised diagnosis proposed for the genus Mytocephala Struve and for Uralichas tardus Vela & Corbacho. Parvilichas Corbacho & Vela is considered to be a junior synonym of Uralichas Delgado. From a palaeobiogeographical point of view, the Bou Nemrou locality shows strong relationships with trilobite assemblages from the Dobrotivian and with the lower Berounian sandstone facies of Bohemia, reinforcing the correlation of both regions. Some soft-bodied structures are recognized here, including the digestive tracts of Uralichas and the traces of paired, metameric axial bands in the anterior thoracic segments of the trilobite Selenopeltis preserved in apatite and interpreted as intersegmental musculature.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 10-01-2017
DOI: 10.1038/SREP39728
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 11-2009
Publisher: Polska Akademia Nauk Instytut Paleobiologii (Institute of Paleobiology, Polish Academy of Sciences)
Date: 12-2009
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 29-10-2023
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 09-2013
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 21-10-2014
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 04-2005
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 12-2011
DOI: 10.1038/NATURE10689
Abstract: Until recently, intricate details of the optical design of non-biomineralized arthropod eyes remained elusive in Cambrian Burgess-Shale-type deposits, despite exceptional preservation of soft-part anatomy in such Konservat-Lagerstätten. The structure and development of ommatidia in arthropod compound eyes support a single origin some time before the latest common ancestor of crown-group arthropods, but the appearance of compound eyes in the arthropod stem group has been poorly constrained in the absence of adequate fossils. Here we report 2-3-cm paired eyes from the early Cambrian (approximately 515 million years old) Emu Bay Shale of South Australia, assigned to the Cambrian apex predator Anomalocaris. Their preserved visual surfaces are composed of at least 16,000 hexagonally packed ommatidial lenses (in a single eye), rivalling the most acute compound eyes in modern arthropods. The specimens show two distinct taphonomic modes, preserved as iron oxide (after pyrite) and calcium phosphate, demonstrating that disparate styles of early diagenetic mineralization can replicate the same type of extracellular tissue (that is, cuticle) within a single Burgess-Shale-type deposit. These fossils also provide compelling evidence for the arthropod affinities of anomalocaridids, push the origin of compound eyes deeper down the arthropod stem lineage, and indicate that the compound eye evolved before such features as a hardened exoskeleton. The inferred acuity of the anomalocaridid eye is consistent with other evidence that these animals were highly mobile visual predators in the water column. The existence of large, macrophagous nektonic predators possessing sharp vision--such as Anomalocaris--within the early Cambrian ecosystem probably helped to accelerate the escalatory 'arms race' that began over half a billion years ago.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 11-12-2018
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 05-2023
DOI: 10.1111/PALA.12651
Abstract: Trilobites were notably flexible in the moulting behaviours they employed, producing a variety of moult configurations preserved in the fossil record. Investigations seeking to explain this moulting variability and its potential impacts are few, despite abundant material being available for study. We present the first quantitative study on moulting in a single trilobite species using a dataset of almost 500 moult specimens of Estaingia bilobata from the Cambrian (Series 2, Stage 4) Emu Bay Shale, South Australia. Specimens were categorized by moulting mode (Salter's or Sutural Gape) and their associated configurations, and their body proportions measured from both a museum collection (including a bycatch s le) and a randomly‐collected field s le. This enabled analysis of the proportion of E . bilobata specimens displaying the Sutural Gape and Salter's modes of moulting and their different configurations, and tests for association between moulting behaviour and body proportions. The results show a wide range of E . bilobata moulting configurations in all s les, suggesting that configurations represent definable instances in a largely continuous spectrum of variation. Analyses comparing body proportions of specimens showing the two modes of moulting were non‐significant, suggesting there is no true association between moulting behaviour and body proportion, except for a single significant result for body length. All results were relatively consistent between the museum and field s les. However, removing accessioned specimens from the museum s le brought results even further in line with the field s le, supporting the need for consideration of museum collection bias in palaeontological analyses.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 13-06-2021
DOI: 10.1002/SPP2.1323
Abstract: Trilobites are one of the most erse and abundant fossil groups from the early Palaeozoic, and as such are useful for answering important questions about early animal evolution, including developmental processes. Ontogenetic information for a large number of trilobite species has been published, but cases where multiple articulated specimens are known across the full range of developmental stages are rare. The early Cambrian (Series 2, Stage 4) Emu Bay Shale biota from Kangaroo Island (South Australia) is numerically dominated by trilobites, particularly articulated specimens of the ellipsocephaloid Estaingia bilobata , which are present in densities of in iduals per square metre on certain bedding planes. Here we describe the essentially complete post‐embryonic ontogenetic series of E. bilobata from the Emu Bay Shale, and investigate patterns of growth relating to articulation and segmentation in this early Cambrian arthropod. Estaingia bilobata exhibits the hypoprotomeric mode of growth, with the epimorphic phase (the cessation of trunk segment generation) reached prior to the onset of the holaspid period. The meraspid pygidium had an extended equilibrium period in which anterior segment release into the thorax was matched by subterminal segment generation. Previously undocumented morphological features of E. bilobata , including the hypostome and bispinose pleural tips in holaspides, are also described. The growth characteristics and morphological features of E. bilobata documented herein strengthen close phylogenetic relationships between the Estaingiidae, Ellipsocephalidae and Xystriduridae.
Publisher: The Royal Society
Date: 29-04-2009
Abstract: Exceptional fossil specimens with preserved soft parts from the Maotianshan Shale ( ca 520 Myr ago) and the Burgess Shale (505 Myr ago) biotas indicate that the worldwide distributed bivalved arthropod Isoxys was probably a non-benthic visual predator. New lines of evidence come from the functional morphology of its powerful prehensile frontal appendages that, combined with large spherical eyes, are thought to have played a key role in the recognition and capture of swimming or epibenthic prey. The swimming and steering of this arthropod was achieved by the beating of multiple setose exopods and a flap-like telson. The appendage morphology of Isoxys indicates possible phylogenetical relationships with the megacheirans, a widespread group of assumed predator arthropods characterized by a pre-oral ‘great appendage’. Evidence from functional morphology and taphonomy suggests that Isoxys was able to migrate through the water column and was possibly exploiting hyperbenthic niches for food. Although certainly not unique, the case of Isoxys supports the idea that off-bottom animal interactions such as predation, associated with complex feeding strategies and behaviours (e.g. vertical migration and hunting) were established by the Early Cambrian. It also suggests that a prototype of a pelagic food chain had already started to build-up at least in the lower levels of the water column.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 04-2020
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 03-2010
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 09-2013
Publisher: Scandinavian University Press / Universitetsforlaget AS
Date: 04-2017
DOI: 10.1111/LET.12197
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 10-2016
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 12-2011
Publisher: Czech Geological Survey
Date: 19-05-2014
Publisher: Canadian Science Publishing
Date: 06-2006
DOI: 10.1139/E06-012
Abstract: Study of over 1000 specimens of Marrella splendens Walcott, 1912, out of the more than 9000 collected by the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) since 1975, has produced new information on the anatomy, functional morphology, and behaviour of this most common arthropod in the Burgess Shale fauna. Among the new features recognized is the distinction between the alimentary canal and circulatory system where the former is generally three-dimensional and slightly reflective, the latter never presents any relief and is very reflective. A larger range of size is now known, from 2.4 to 24.5 mm in length, with small in iduals possessing 17 body segments to large specimens with more than 26 body segments, representing an almost complete ontogenetic series. The second pair of "antennae" is now interpreted as swimming appendages, since the five distal segments are dorsoventrally compressed, fringed with setae and with a considerable blood supply, providing a paddlelike appendage capable of producing a considerable propelling force. The ROM collections extend the geographical distribution of Marrella 13 km to the southeast and the stratigraphical range through the lowest five members of the Burgess Shale Formation.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 08-02-2023
DOI: 10.1017/S0016756822001261
Abstract: Malformed trilobite specimens present important insight into understanding how this extinct arthropod group recovered from developmental or moulting malfunctions, pathologies, and injuries. Previously documented ex les of malformed trilobite specimens are often considered in isolation, with few studies reporting on multiple malformations in the same species. Here we report malformed specimens of the ellipsocephaloid trilobite Estaingia bilobata from the Emu Bay Shale Konservat-Lagerstätte (Cambrian Series 2, Stage 4 ) on Kangaroo Island, South Australia. Ten malformed specimens exhibiting injuries, pathologies, and a range of teratologies are documented. Furthermore, five ex les of mangled exoskeletons are presented, indicative of predation on E. bilobata . Considering the position of malformed and normal specimens of E. bilobata in bivariate space, we demonstrate that the majority of malformed specimens cluster among the larger in iduals. Such specimens may exemplify larger forms successfully escaping predation attempts, but could equally represent in iduals exhibiting old injuries that were made during earlier (smaller) growth stages that have healed through subsequent moulting events. The available evidence from the Emu Bay Shale suggests that this small, extremely abundant trilobite likely played an important role in the structure of the local ecosystem, occupying a low trophic level and being preyed upon by multiple durophagous arthropods. Furthermore, the scarcity of malformed E. bilobata specimens demonstrates how rarely injuries, developmental malfunctions, and pathological infestations occurred within the species.
Publisher: Geological Society of London
Date: 23-10-2022
DOI: 10.1144/SP485.1
Abstract: The fossil trade of Paleozoic material from southern Morocco was estimated by some North American media to reach about US$ 40 million a year, and it supplies fossil shows and shops all over the world. In its initial stages of extraction, preparation and export, this trade constitutes the main source of income to more than 50 000 people in an area basically conscribed within the triangle made by Alnif–Erfoud–Taouz (eastern Anti-Atlas), and generated a true ‘fossil industry’. This includes diggers and miners, artisans that prepare and restore fossils (and others dedicated to making replicas with decorative purposes), quarries working on fossiliferous ornamental rocks, and numerous middlemen and Moroccan wholesalers who annually attend the large fossil fairs of Europe and the USA. More than 25 years of intensive exploitation of fossil resources in the Anti-Atlas has also produced important scientific discoveries, such as world-renowned fossil biotas like Fezouata and Tafilalt, and hundreds of new Paleozoic fossil taxa, in parallel with a worrying destruction of outcrops and many palaeontological sites. The new mining legislation also deals with the extraction, collection and trade of geological specimens, and a future specific legal framework for fossils and geological heritage will try to manage the existing industry. It will aim to restrain the constant deterioration of the rich Moroccan geological heritage, while enabling strategies of sustainable development so that the local population is not negatively affected.
Publisher: Geological Society of America
Date: 05-2009
DOI: 10.1130/G25513A.1
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 04-2011
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 13-05-2016
DOI: 10.1111/PALA.12243
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 09-2015
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 05-2007
Publisher: Scandinavian University Press / Universitetsforlaget AS
Date: 07-2017
DOI: 10.1111/LET.12216
Publisher: Geological Society of London
Date: 10-11-2016
DOI: 10.1144/JGS2015-083
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 16-12-2013
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 12-2013
Publisher: Editorial CSIC
Date: 18-11-2019
Abstract: Un estudio reciente de la Cuarcita de Rawnsley, en el Ediacárico terminal Ediacaran de la Cordillera de Flinders, Australia meridional, demuestra cómo algunos taxones clave de la biota de Ediacara están restringidos a ciertas facies sedimentarias y determinados niveles estratigráficos. La Cuarcita de Rawnsleycomprende tres miembros separados por discotinuidades: (i) el Miembro basal de la Arenisca de Chace es somera y azoica, aunque destacan las superficies con texturas orgánicas (ii) el Miemrbo de la Arenisca de Ediacara rellena un Sistema de incisiones submarinas que recortan el miembro inferior de Chace y la Arenisca parálica de Bonney, infrayacente a la Cuarcita de Rawnsley y (iii) el Miembro de la Arenisca de Ediacara es asimismo recortada de forma erosiva por el Miembro de la Arenisca de Nilpena, menos fosilífera.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 03-2012
DOI: 10.1666/11-077.1
Abstract: The Emu Bay Shale Konservat-Lagerstätte (Cambrian Series 2, Stage 4) on Kangaroo Island, South Australia, is the source of two new non-biomineralized artiopodan arthropods. Squamacula buckorum n. sp. is the first record outside of China of a genus otherwise known only from its type species, S. clypeata , from the Chengjiang biota. The Australian species displays the long cephalic doublure and spiniform exopod setae that are apomorphic for this genus, provides new information on the alimentary tract and midgut glands (the latter preserved as three-dimensional, permineralized structures), and indicates interspecific variability in trunk segment numbers. The distribution of Squamacula strengthens the biogeographic connections between early Cambrian “Burgess Shale-type” biotas of Australia and South China. Australimicola spriggi n. gen. n. sp. represents a monotypic genus resolved in a cladistic analysis of Cambro-Ordovician artiopodans as most closely related to or within Conciliterga (a clade containing Helmetia , Kuamaia , Kwanyinaspis , Rhombicalvaria , Saperion , Skioldia , and Tegopelte ). Compared with other members of this clade from Chengjiang and the Burgess Shale, the new genus is diagnosed by an elongate trunk with 23 thoracic tergites having spatulate pleural tips and a small pygidium possessing a single, elongate pair of pleural spines, with specimens also showing a hypostome attached to an anterior (or prehypostomal) sclerite, antennae, short endopods, an annulated alimentary tract, and a series of three-dimensional, permineralized midgut glands. An alternative relationship between Australimicola and the Early Ordovician–Early Devonian Cheloniellida explains the shared anterior flexure of trunk pleurae but forces dubious homologies in other characters, such as dorsally-articulated furcae versus spines.
Publisher: Scandinavian University Press / Universitetsforlaget AS
Date: 10-2018
DOI: 10.1111/LET.12266
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 25-09-2020
Publisher: Czech Geological Survey
Date: 19-05-2014
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 05-2004
DOI: 10.1038/429040A
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 06-2011
DOI: 10.1038/NATURE10097
Abstract: Despite the status of the eye as an "organ of extreme perfection", theory suggests that complex eyes can evolve very rapidly. The fossil record has, until now, been inadequate in providing insight into the early evolution of eyes during the initial radiation of many animal groups known as the Cambrian explosion. This is surprising because Cambrian Burgess-Shale-type deposits are replete with exquisitely preserved animals, especially arthropods, that possess eyes. However, with the exception of biomineralized trilobite eyes, virtually nothing is known about the details of their optical design. Here we report exceptionally preserved fossil eyes from the Early Cambrian (∼ 515 million years ago) Emu Bay Shale of South Australia, revealing that some of the earliest arthropods possessed highly advanced compound eyes, each with over 3,000 large ommatidial lenses and a specialized 'bright zone'. These are the oldest non-biomineralized eyes known in such detail, with preservation quality exceeding that found in the Burgess Shale and Chengjiang deposits. Non-biomineralized eyes of similar complexity are otherwise unknown until about 85 million years later. The arrangement and size of the lenses indicate that these eyes belonged to an active predator that was capable of seeing in low light. The eyes are more complex than those known from contemporaneous trilobites and are as advanced as those of many living forms. They provide further evidence that the Cambrian explosion involved rapid innovation in fine-scale anatomy as well as gross morphology, and are consistent with the concept that the development of advanced vision helped to drive this great evolutionary event.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 03-2007
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 04-2022
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 15-01-2017
DOI: 10.1017/S0016756815001053
Abstract: A new euarthropod from the Emu Bay Shale (Cambrian Series 2, Stage 4) on Kangaroo Island, South Australia, is a rare component of this Konservat-Lagerstätte. The two known specimens of Eozetetes gemmelli gen. et sp. nov., in combination, depict a non-biomineralized euarthropod with a relatively short cephalic shield lacking dorsal eyes and bearing a flagelliform antenna, 18 trunk segments with broad tergopleurae and paired axial nodes/carinae, and an elongate, styliform tailspine. The new species compares most closely with taxa in the putative clade Vicissicaudata, which groups Aglaspidida, Cheloniellida and Xenopoda. A ring-like terminal tergite in E. gemmelli corresponds to the caudal tergite in cheloniellids and xenopodans. Incorporating Eozetetes into recent character sets for Cambrian euarthropods supports close affinities to either Emeraldella or to aglaspidids, but several plesiomorphic character states are inconsistent with membership in Aglaspidida sensu stricto. Eozetetes is among the earliest of various Cambrian taxa informally referred to as ‘aglaspidid-like euarthropods’.
Location: No location found
Start Date: 2022
End Date: 2025
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded ActivityStart Date: 2013
End Date: 2017
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded ActivityStart Date: 05-2022
End Date: 04-2025
Amount: $488,000.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded ActivityStart Date: 2014
End Date: 09-2019
Amount: $699,355.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded Activity