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Hyoliths, an enigmatic group of Paleozoic invertebrates have long puzzled paleontologists. A new analysis of hundreds of specimens shows that they are close relatives of brachiopods or lamp shells.
An extinct group of animals with cone-shaped shells finds its place on the tree of life.
Image by Danielle Dufault
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Ancient oddball invertebrate finds its place on the tree of life
Hyoliths are evolutionary misfits no more.
This class of ancient marine invertebrates has now been firmly pegged as lophophorates, a group whose living members include horseshoe worms and lamp shells, concludes an analysis of more than 1,500 fossils, including preserved soft tissue.
The soft-bodied creatures, encased in conical shells, concealed U-shaped guts and rings of tentacles called lophophores that surrounded their mouths. Fossil analysis suggests that hyoliths used those tentacles and spines, called helens, to trawl the seafloor more than 500 million years ago, researchers report online January 11 in Nature.
For years, paleontologists have argued over where on the tree of life these bottom-feeders belonged. Some scientists thought hyoliths were closely related to mollusks, while others thought the odd-looking creatures deserved a branch all their own. This new insight into hyolith anatomy “settles a long-standing paleontological debate,” the researchers write.
In this hyolith fossil specimen, six tentacles of the lophophore feeding organ (right) and two spines called helens (top and bottom) are visible.
ROYAL ONTARIO MUSEUM
via sciencenews
An article published in the journal "Nature" describes a research on Haplophrentis carinatus and in general of the group of hyoliths, animals that lived during the Cambrian period, starting from about 530 million years ago. A team of researchers from the University of Toronto found evidence that these animals are related to the brachiopods (phylum Brachiopoda), marine invertebrates that existed at the time of which some species still exist today.
