My 25 years of palaeoart chronology...

In 2022 I created the first reconstruction of Wufengella, for Guo et et al. From the Early Cambrian, Wufengella is evolutionarily important because it is close to the ancestry of Brachiozoa, Bryozoa, and Phoronida. It is from the Chiungchussu Formation, China.

Apparently, some 530 million years ago (give or take) in the #Cambrian age, after about 2.5 billion years of rather plodding #evolution, bi-lateral symmetry appeared in animals (after some dabbling in tri-lateral and penta-lateral symmetry) and when brains showed up they were bi-lateral. #Vertebrate, but still #jawless, fishes were swimming after each other for lunch. #Eyes, which had already existed for a long while, started showing up in pairs, at the head end of the fishes. (1/3)

This will be a challenge to the fediverse connecting abilities: I need to make a costume of a #trilobite and of #Anomalocaris. I am looking for any help: someone has made one already and is happy to share the details, a costume designed willing to take up the challenge, a handwork hobbyist with a knack for sewing/cardboard magic who always want to launch their skills onto a bigger stage. We are making a #science show for kids as part of my #ERC project MindTheGap and we will be explaining #evolution using #fossils. #Cambrian fossils If you have any hints, contacts, old costumes, please get in touch. We are located in NL so we probably cannot commission costumes from overseas (too much risk of delay due to customs). #Outreach #ScienceCommunication #paleontology

Thinking about fossil marine invertebrates that Keilan-Jaworowska studied at the beginning of her career, made me think of this pattern made from my linocut animal prints with collaged washi papers from the Cambrian Period (from 538.8 million to 485.4 million years ago).

https://www.spoonflower.com/en/fabric/16990670-cambrian-sea-by-minouette

My 25 years of palaeoart chronology...

And it's FossilFriday! So here's a 520 million year old fossil of Timorbestia, a stem-group chaetognath (arrow worms). In 2020 I was commissioned to build a life-size model of this beauty.

Oldest-known evolutionary arms race https://phys.org/news/2025-01-fossil-reveals-oldest-evolutionary-arms.html

Adaptive responses in #Cambrian predator and prey highlight the arms race during the rise of #animals https://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(24)01647-6

"These 517-million-year-old predator-prey interactions occurred between a small, shelled #animal distantly related to #brachiopods and an unknown marine animal capable of piercing its shell... an increase in shell wall thickness coincides with an increase in the number of perforated shells"

Rare #fossil embryos show early #Ecdysozoa development in #Cambrian era https://phys.org/news/2024-12-rare-fossil-embryos-early-ecdysozoa.html paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0031018224006242

"it suggests a bag-shaped body is likely primitive for #ecdysozoans (a diverse group of #animals including #roundworms, velvet #worms, #insects, and #crabs), while a vermiform body, characteristic of crown-group ecdysozoans, evolved later."

#Fossil of #Cambrian Long-Headed Chordate Unearthed in #Utah https://www.sci.news/paleontology/nuucichthys-rhynchocephalus-13130.html

A long-headed Cambrian soft-bodied vertebrate from the #AmericanGreatBasin region https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.240350

"#Nuucichthys rhynchocephalus swam in the Cambrian #oceans between 505 and 500 million years ago. It had a finless torpedo-shaped body that includes a number of markers characteristic of #vertebrates. It is one of only four species documenting the early evolutionary stage of vertebrate lineage."

My 25 years of palaeoart chronology...

Draft 1 & 2 for my 2019 "Cambrian Epic" painting, featuring a variety of wonderful creatures from the Sirius Passet lagerstätte, Greenland. This was commissioned for Park et al 2024.

My 25 years of palaeoart chronology...

Into 2019 with "Cambrian Epic," featuring two Timorebestia (newly discovered at that time) and a variety of other wonderful creatures from the Sirius Passet lagerstätte. This was commissioned for Park et al 2024.

Happy Halloween! Try not to get bitten by any big and scary Anomalocaris out there, like this unlucky Middle Cambrian Elrathia Kingii. Trilobites were not the biggest invertebrates in the sea, and needed to watch out

A remarkable #fossil assemblage gets a new interpretation https://phys.org/news/2024-10-remarkable-fossil-assemblage.html

The #EmuBay Shale: A unique early #Cambrian #Lagerstätte from a tectonically active basin https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adp2650

"paleontologists recently discovered that an ancient seascape known for its diverse assemblage of exceptionally preserved #fossils represents an unexpected oceanic setting, placing the fossils in an environmental context that is dramatically different from other assemblages of the Cambrian age"

Gold bugs: New #fossil arthropod preserved in fool's gold https://phys.org/news/2024-10-gold-bugs-fossil-arthropod.html

A pyritized Ordovician leanchoiliid arthropod https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(24)01367-8

"#Megacheirans like Lomankus were very diverse during the #Cambrian Period (538–485 million years ago) but were thought to be largely extinct by the #Ordovician Period (485–443 million years ago)."

Labiostria Westropi may be common in the McKay group but I think it has very lovely spines long along its edges, its like its in a hurry to get somewhere... I suppose in the Cambrian period there were a lot of niches still to rush into.

Here is a full specimen with its cheeks.

The #InsertAnInvert2024 prompt lens eyes made me think of trilobites. Not only do they have the earliest complex eyes we know of with their compound eyes with separate clusters of photo receptors (or ommatidia) each with its own lens to make mosaic-like pictures in their brains, but their lenses were hard and made of the mineral calcite!
1/n

In 1909, Charles Doolittle Walcott discovered fossils of many strange extinct animals from the early Cambrian period in the Burgess Shale. #Poetry #Science #History #Paleontology #Cambrian #BurgessShale #Walcott (https://sharpgiving.com/thebookofscience/items/p1909c.html)

For a wildcard #InsertAnInvert2024 week we’re going back in time all the way to the Cambrian for the Opabinia! The fossils of this soft-bodied 7 cm long animal are found in the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale Lagerstätte (505 million years ago) of British Columbia. Opabinia likely caught prey with the grasping claws on the end of its long tubular proboscis (like an elephant’s trunk). 1/2

New on 'Stuff': Book Review - Life on a Young Planet #️️️️ #book-review #english #archaeology #astrobiology #mass-extinction #geology #biology #science #cambrian #ediacaran https://stuff.graves.cl/posts/2024-08-28_19_59-book-review-life-on-a-young-planet.html

My 25 years of palaeoart chronology...

In 2013 I built 23 scale and life-size models for MUSE Science Museum, in Trento, Italy. Here's an enlarged hyolith (Lophotrochozoa), this one is from the Cambrian.

My 25 years of palaeoart chronology...

In 2013 I built 23 scale and life-size models for MUSE Science Museum, in Trento, Italy. Here's Hallucigenia, from the Middle Cambrian.