image: Artistic reconstruction of Habelia optata. Habelia is thought to have been an active predator, eating small animals with hard carapaces -- such as trilobites. view more
Credit: Courtesy of Joanna Liang. Copyright: Royal Ontario Museum
TORONTO, ON (Canada) - Paleontologists at the University of Toronto (U of T) and the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) in Toronto have entirely revisited a tiny yet exceptionally fierce ancient sea creature called Habelia optata that has confounded scientists since it was first discovered more than a century ago.
The research by lead author Cédric Aria, recent graduate of the PhD program in the department of ecology & evolutionary biology in the Faculty of Arts & Science at U of T, and co-author Jean-Bernard Caron, senior curator of invertebrate palaeontology at the ROM and an associate professor in the departments of ecology & evolutionary biology and Earth sciences at U of T, is published today in BMC Evolutionary Biology.
Approximately 2 cm in length with a tail as long as the rest of its body, the long-extinct Habelia optata belongs to the group of invertebrate animals called arthropods, which also includes such familiar creatures as spiders, insects, lobsters and crabs. It lived during the middle Cambrian period approximately 508 million years ago and comes from the renowned Burgess Shale fossil deposit in British Columbia. Habelia optata was part of the "Cambrian explosion," a period of rapid evolutionary change when most major animal groups first emerged in the fossil record.
Like all arthropods, Habelia optata features a segmented body with external skeleton and jointed limbs. What remained unclear for decades, however, was the main sub-group of arthropods to which Habelia belonged. Early studies had mentioned mandibulates -- a hyperdiverse lineage whose members possess antennae and a pair of specialized appendages known as mandibles, usually used to grasp, squeeze and crush their food. But Habelia was later left as one of the typically unresolved arthropods of the Burgess Shale.
The new analysis by the U of T-ROM researchers suggests that Habelia optata was instead a close relative of the ancestor of all chelicerates, the other sub-group of arthropods living today, named for the presence of appendages called chelicerae in front of the mouth and used to cut food. This is mostly due to the overall anatomy of the head in Habelia, and the presence of two small chelicerae-like appendages revealed in these fossils.
"Habelia now shows in great detail the body architecture from which chelicerates emerged, which allows us to solve some long-standing questions," said Aria, who is now a post-doctoral researcher at the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, in China. "We can now explain why, for instance, horseshoe crabs have a reduced pair of limbs - the chilaria - at the back of their heads. Those are relics of fully-formed appendages, as chelicerates seem to originally have had heads with no less than seven pairs of limbs."
Aria and Caron analyzed 41 specimens in total, the majority of which are new specimens acquired by ROM-led fieldwork parties to the Burgess Shale.
The research illustrates that the well-armoured body of Habelia optata, covered in a multitude of different spines, was divided into head, thorax and post-thorax, all bearing different types of appendages. The thorax displays five pairs of walking legs, while the post-thorax houses rounded appendages likely used in respiration.
"Scorpions and the now-extinct sea scorpions are also chelicerates with bodies divided into three distinct regions," Aria explained. "We think that these regions broadly correspond to those of Habelia. But a major difference is that scorpions and sea scorpions, like all chelicerates, literally 'walk on their heads,' while Habelia still had walking appendages in its thorax."
The researchers argue that this difference in anatomy allowed Habelia to evolve an especially complex head that makes this fossil species even more peculiar compared to known chelicerates. The head of Habelia contained a series of five appendages made of a large plate with teeth for mastication, a leg-like branch with stiff bristle-like spines for grasping, and an elongate, slender branch modified as a sensory or tactile appendage.
"This complex apparatus of appendages and jaws made Habelia an exceptionally fierce predator for its size," said Aria. "It was likely both very mobile and efficient in tearing apart its preys."
The surprising outcome of this study, despite the evolutionary relationship of Habelia with chelicerates, is that these unusual characteristics led instead the researchers to compare the head of Habelia with that of mandibulates from a functional perspective. Thus, the peculiar sensory branches may have been used in a similar fashion as mandibulates use antennae. Also, the overlapping plate-like appendages in the middle series of five are shown to open and close parallel to the underside of the head -- much as they do in mandibulates, especially those that feed on animals with hardened carapaces.
Lastly, a seventh pair of appendages at the back of the head seems to have fulfilled a function similar to that of "maxillipeds" -- appendages in mandibulates that assist with the other head limbs in the processing of food. This broad correspondence in function rather than in evolutionary origin is called "convergence."
"From an evolutionary point of view, Habelia is close to the point of divergence between chelicerates and mandibulates," Aria said. "But its similarities with mandibulates are secondary modifications of features that were in part already chelicerate in nature. This suggests that chelicerates originated from species with a high structural variability."
The researchers conclude from the outstanding head structure, as well as from well-developed walking legs, that Habelia optata and its relatives were active predators of the Cambrian sea floors, hunting for small shelly sea creatures, such as small trilobites--arthropods with hard, mineralized exoskeletons that were already very diverse and abundant during Cambrian times.
"This builds onto the importance of carapaces and shells for evolutionary change during the Cambrian explosion, and expands our understanding of ecosystems at this time, showing another level of predator-prey relationship and its determining impact on the rise of arthropods as we know them today," said Caron, who was Aria's PhD supervisor when the bulk of this research was completed.
"The appearance and spread of animals with shells are considered to be one of the defining characteristics of the Cambrian explosion, and Habelia contributes to illustrate how important this ecological factor was for the early diversification of chelicerates and arthropods in general."
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The findings are described in the study "Mandibulate convergence in an armoured Cambrian stem chelicerate," where Habelia optata is brought to life by visual artist and scientific illustrator Joanna Liang with animations depicting the spectacular body architecture and complex feeding mechanism of this fossil. Liang collaborated with Aria and Caron to produce the animations as part of her master of science thesis in biomedical communications at U of T under supervisor Dave Mazierski.
The University of Toronto and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada provided funding for the research.
The specimens of Habelia curated at the Royal Ontario Museum were collected in the 1990s under several Parks Canada Research and Collection permits. The Burgess Shale fossil sites are located within Yoho and Kootenay National Parks. Parks Canada protects the sites and works with leading scientific researchers to expand knowledge and understanding of this key period of earth history. The Burgess Shale was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1980 due to its outstanding universal value, and is now part of the larger Canadian Rocky Mountains World Heritage Site.
Notes to media:
- The study will appear online at https://doi.org/10.1186/s12862-017-1088-7 after the embargo lifts.
- Images and illustrations with descriptive captions are available for download at https://www.dropbox.com/sh/fjln1yk2mt52kik/AACSztGnr2uK2yaP9AScVOINa?dl=0
- Animations available for embedding demonstrate Habelia optata's spectacular body architecture and complex feeding mechanism.
MEDIA CONTACTS:
Cédric Aria
(bilingual - English-French)
Post-doctoral researcher
Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology
86-153-7100-2536
cedric.aria@protonmail.com
Skype ID: c.aria
Jean-Bernard Caron
(bilingual - English-French)
Senior Curator of Invertebrate Palaeontology
Royal Ontario Museum and
Associate Professor
Departments of Earth Sciences and Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
University of Toronto
1-416-586-5593
jcaron@rom.on.ca (preferred mode of communication)
Sean Bettam
Communications, Faculty of Arts & Science
University of Toronto
1-416-946-7950
s.bettam@utoronto.ca
David McKay
Communications Coordinator
Royal Ontario Museum
1 416 586 5559
davidm@rom.on.ca
Lesley Matheson
Public Relations and Communications Officer
Agente des relations publiques et communications
Lake Louise
Yoho & Kootenay Field Unit
Unité de gestion du secteur de Lake Louise et des parcs nationaux Yoho et Kootenay
Parks Canada Agency
Agence Parcs Canada
PO Box 99, Field BC, V0A 1G0
1-403-431-2325
lesley.matheson@pc.gc.ca
Government of Canada
Gouvernement du Canada
Other online information:
ROMblogs (http://www.rom.on.ca/en/collections-research/blog)
Website: The Burgess Shale (http://burgess-shale.rom.on.ca/en/), Virtual Museum of Canada, by Royal Ontario Museum and Parks Canada
Royal Ontario Museum Burgess Shale Projects (http://www.rom.on.ca/en/collections-research/research/natural-history/burgess-shale-projects)
The Royal Ontario Museum's Dawn of Life Gallery Preview (http://www.rom.on.ca/en/exhibitions-galleries/exhibitions/dawn-of-life-preview)
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Journal
BMC Evolutionary Biology