Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T18:40:32.426Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Molecules and the Early Fossil Record

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 April 2016

James W. Valentine*
Affiliation:
Department of Geological Sciences, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106

Extract

The earliest fossil record of animals has long been an enigma. For nearly a century after the appearance of The Origin of Species, mineralized trilobites were thought to be among the first organisms to appear as fossils, and as they were considered to be complex life forms, a long previous episode of animal evolution seemed to be indicated. Discovery and description of Tommotian and Vendian faunas, with their small shelly and Ediacaran fossils respectively, provided us with an idea of the nature of organisms in strata that are progressively older than the trilobite-bearing beds. Yet in these older assemblages we do not find the sorts of organisms that might be expected to be precursors to the well-known Phanerozoic clades. The puzzle remains.

Type
Current Research
Copyright
Copyright © The Paleontological Society 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Literature Cited

Field, K. G., Olsen, G. J., Lane, D. J., Giovannoni, S. J., Ghiselin, M. T., Raff, E. C., Page, N. R., and Raff, R. A. 1988. Molecular phylogeny of the animal kingdom. Science 239:748753.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lake, J. A. 1989. Origin of multicellular animals. Pp. 273278. In Fernholm, B., Bremer, K., and Jornvall, H., eds. The Hierarchy of Life. Elsevier Scientific, Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Patel, N. H., Kornberg, T. B., and Goodman, C. S. 1989a. Expression of engrailed during segmentation in grasshopper and crayfish. Development 107:201212.Google Scholar
Patel, N. H., Martin-Blanco, E., Coleman, K. G., Poole, S. J., Ellis, M. C., Kornberg, T. B., and Goodman, C. S. 1989b. Expression of engrailed proteins in arthropods, annelids, and chordates. Cell 58:955968.Google Scholar
Valentine, J. W. 1989. Bilaterians of the Precambrian-Cambrian transition and the annelid-arthropod relationship. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 86:22722275.Google Scholar