Haootia Quadriformis N. Gen., N. Sp., Interpreted As a Muscular Cnidarian Impression from the Late Ediacaran Period (approx. 560 Ma)

Overview

Journal Proc Biol Sci

Specialty Biology

Date 2014 Aug 29

PMID 25165764

Citations 20

Authors

Alexander G Liu

Jack J Matthews

Latha R Menon

Duncan McIlroy

Martin D Brasier

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Muscle tissue is a fundamentally eumetazoan attribute. The oldest evidence for fossilized muscular tissue before the Early Cambrian has hitherto remained moot, being reliant upon indirect evidence in the form of Late Ediacaran ichnofossils. We here report a candidate muscle-bearing organism, Haootia quadriformis n. gen., n. sp., from approximately 560 Ma strata in Newfoundland, Canada. This taxon exhibits sediment moulds of twisted, superimposed fibrous bundles arranged quadrilaterally, extending into four prominent bifurcating corner branches. Haootia is distinct from all previously published contemporaneous Ediacaran macrofossils in its symmetrically fibrous, rather than frondose, architecture. Its bundled fibres, morphology, and taphonomy compare well with the muscle fibres of fossil and extant Cnidaria, particularly the benthic Staurozoa. Haootia quadriformis thus potentially provides the earliest body fossil evidence for both metazoan musculature, and for Eumetazoa, in the geological record.

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