{"id":6460,"date":"2024-08-05T09:55:40","date_gmt":"2024-08-05T09:55:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/x-rays-reveal-half-billion-year-old-insect-ancestor\/"},"modified":"2024-08-05T09:55:40","modified_gmt":"2024-08-05T09:55:40","slug":"x-rays-reveal-half-billion-year-old-insect-ancestor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/x-rays-reveal-half-billion-year-old-insect-ancestor\/","title":{"rendered":"X-rays reveal half-billion-year-old insect ancestor"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\"EmmaEmma J Long<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The scientists were able to pick out the perfectly preserved creature’s internal anatomy in different colours <\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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The internal anatomy of a prehistoric creature the size of a poppy seed has been revealed in \u201castonishing detail\u201d.<\/p>\n

Researchers used powerful X-rays to scan the 520-million-year-old fossil.<\/p>\n

The results, published in the journal Nature<\/a>, reveal its microscopic blood vessels and nervous system.<\/p>\n

It is a peek inside the body of one of the earliest ancestors of modern insects, spiders and crabs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Lead researcher Dr Martin Smith said this was a dream fossil, in part because it was preserved in its larval, or immature, stage – when its body was still developing.<\/p>\n

\u201cLooking at these early stages really is the key to understanding how those adult [body shapes] are formed – not just through evolution but through development.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut larvae are so tiny and fragile, the chances of finding one fossilised are practically zero \u2013 or so I thought.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"EmmaEmma J Long<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The half-billion-year-old larva has been almost perfectly preserved, researchers say<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Dr Smith\u2019s colleagues found the fossil in a pile of \u201cprehistoric grit\u201d during a study of half-billion-year-old rock deposits in the north of China known to contain microscopic fossils.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur collaborators in China have large amounts of this stuff, which they dissolve it in acid and these little bits fall out,\u201d Dr Smith said.<\/p>\n

A team of technicians at Yunnan University spent years sifting through the material and picking fossils out of the dust. <\/p>\n

After examining this particular specimen under the microscope during a trip to China, Dr Smith said, he had realised it was \u201csomething very special\u201d and asked if he could bring it back to the UK to have a closer look.<\/p>\n

The team mounted the fossil on the head of a pin in order to scan it with intense X-rays at Oxford\u2019s Diamond Light Source<\/a> facility. That is where its internal secrets were revealed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I saw the amazing structures preserved under its skin, my jaw just dropped,\u201d Dr Smith said.<\/p>\n

Researchers generated three-dimensional images of miniature brain regions, digestive glands, a primitive circulatory system and even traces of the nerves supplying the larva\u2019s simple legs and eyes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"MartinMartin R Smith\/Emma J Long<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Scientists were able to pick out specific parts of the creature’s anatomy, including its digestive tract (top, right) and brain (bottom, right) <\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Its brain cavity, which is divided into segments, has revealed the ancestral \u201cnub\u201d of the specialist, segmented heads of modern insects, spiders and crabs that later evolved their various appendages, such as antennae, mouthparts and eyes.<\/p>\n

Study co-author, Dr Katherine Dobson, of the University of Strathclyde, said the natural fossilisation had \u201cachieved almost perfect preservation\u201d.<\/p>\n

Dr Smith said this might have been caused by high concentrations of phosphorus in the ocean where this larva briefly lived and died.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s washed into the oceans when rocks erode on land,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd that phosphorus seems to have flooded the tissues of our fossil,\u201d essentially crystallising its tiny body.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n


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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Emma J Long The scientists were able to pick out the perfectly preserved creature’s internal anatomy in different colours The internal anatomy of a prehistoric creature the size of a poppy seed has been revealed in \u201castonishing detail\u201d. Researchers used powerful X-rays to scan the 520-million-year-old fossil. The results, published in the journal Nature, reveal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6461,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[3918,3916,3917,3443,3915],"class_list":["post-6460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science","tag-ancestor","tag-halfbillionyearold","tag-insect","tag-reveal","tag-xrays"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6460"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6462,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6460\/revisions\/6462"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}