Journal article
The oral cone of Anomalocaris is not a classic ''peytoia''.
- Abstract:
- The Cambro-Ordovician anomalocaridids are large ecdysozoans commonly regarded as ancestors of the arthropods and apex predators. Predation is indicated partly by the presence of an unusual "peytoia"-type oral cone, which is a tetraradial outer ring of 32 plates, four of which are enlarged and in perpendicular arrangement. This oral cone morphology was considered a highly consistent and defining characteristic of well-known Burgess Shale taxa. It is here shown that Anomalocaris has a different oral cone, with only three large plates and a variable number of smaller and medium plates. Its functional morphology suggests that suction, rather than biting, was used for food ingestion, and that anomalocaridids in general employed a range of different scavenging and predatory feeding strategies. Removing anomalocaridids from the position of highly specialized trilobite predators forces a reconsideration of the ecological structure of the earliest marine animal communities in the Cambrian.
- Publication status:
- Published
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1007/s00114-012-0910-8
Authors
- Journal:
- Die Naturwissenschaften More from this journal
- Volume:
- 99
- Issue:
- 6
- Pages:
- 501-504
- Publication date:
- 2012-06-01
- DOI:
- EISSN:
-
1432-1904
- ISSN:
-
0028-1042
- Language:
-
English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
-
pubs:425888
- UUID:
-
uuid:cdee331b-eac2-4a79-9ba0-b19f83cfc7cb
- Local pid:
-
pubs:425888
- Source identifiers:
-
425888
- Deposit date:
-
2013-11-16
- ARK identifier:
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- Copyright date:
- 2012
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