Head Segmentation in Early Cambrian Fuxianhuia: Implications for Arthropod Evolution
Abstract
The arthropod Fuxianhuia from the Chengjiang fauna displays primitive aspects of cephalic segmentation and trunk limb morphology that indicate a basal position within Euarthropoda. The cephalon consists of an eye-bearing sclerite that articulates with a head shield bearing antennules and subchelate appendages. Eye stalks, antennules, and subchelate appendages are proto-, deuto-, and tritocerebral limbs and organs, respectively. The anterior position of the eye-bearing sclerite parallels the embryonic origin of arthropod eye lobes. The head of Fuxianhuia includes the acron and one somite and is regarded as a protocephalon. The definitive head of arthropods may have fused separate eye-bearing and appendage-bearing sclerites.
- Publication:
-
Science
- Pub Date:
- June 1995
- DOI:
- 10.1126/science.268.5215.1339
- Bibcode:
- 1995Sci...268.1339C