{"id":2371,"date":"2014-07-16T14:54:39","date_gmt":"2014-07-16T19:54:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/?p=2371"},"modified":"2014-07-16T14:54:39","modified_gmt":"2014-07-16T19:54:39","slug":"ancient-creatures-display-modern-features","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/ancient-creatures-display-modern-features\/","title":{"rendered":"Ancient creatures display modern features"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_2357\" style=\"width: 410px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Lyrarapax_artists_impression.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2357\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2357\" src=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Lyrarapax_artists_impression.jpg\" alt=\"Artist's impression of Lyararapax, one of the species of the world's first predators, the anomalocaridids, chasing its possible prey, primitive fishes that also existed in the Lower Cambrian. Image credit: Nicholas Strausfeld\/University of Arizona\" width=\"400\" height=\"323\" srcset=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Lyrarapax_artists_impression.jpg 400w, http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Lyrarapax_artists_impression-300x242.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-2357\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Artist&#8217;s impression of Lyararapax, one of the species of the world&#8217;s first predators, the anomalocaridids, chasing its possible prey, primitive fishes that also existed in the Lower Cambrian. Image credit: Nicholas Strausfeld\/University of Arizona<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"color: #222222;\">New, well-preserved fossils from China suggest that an ancient sea predator may share nervous system features with its modern descendants. Anomalocaridids are creatures from the Cambrian era &#8211; over 500 million years ago &#8211; first described from <\/span><a style=\"color: #1155cc;\" href=\"http:\/\/burgess-shale.rom.on.ca\/en\/fossil-gallery\/view-species.php?id=1\" target=\"_blank\">fossils found in the Burgess Shale<\/a><span style=\"color: #222222;\">, in British Columbia\u2019s Yoho National Park. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #222222;\">The new fossils from China describe a new species of anomalocaridid called <\/span><span style=\"font-style: italic; color: #222222;\">Lyrarapax unquispinus<\/span><span style=\"color: #222222;\"> that is so well-preserved its nervous system is visible. Connections between the brain and claw-like front appendages resemble those that enable modern insects, shrimps, and lobsters to control their mouth parts and antennae.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/nature\/journal\/vaop\/ncurrent\/full\/nature13486.html\" target=\"_blank\">Original research paper<\/a><\/span><\/span>\u00a0published in the journal\u00a0<em>Nature\u00a0<\/em>on\u00a0<strong>July 16, 2014<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><span><strong>Names and affiliations of selected\u00a0authors<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<h4 dir=\"ltr\" style=\"color: #222222;\">Peiyun Cong, Yunnan University, China<\/h4>\n<h4 dir=\"ltr\" style=\"color: #222222;\">Nicholas Strausfeld, University of Arizona, U.S.A.<\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New, well-preserved fossils from China suggest that an ancient sea predator may share nervous system features with its modern descendants. Anomalocaridids are creatures from the Cambrian era &#8211; over 500 million years ago &#8211; first described from fossils found in the Burgess Shale, in British Columbia\u2019s Yoho National Park. The new fossils from China describe [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2357,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[917,1938,200],"class_list":["post-2371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-paper-of-interest","tag-evolution","tag-fossils","tag-neurology"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Lyrarapax_artists_impression.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4DqbN-Cf","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2371"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2373,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2371\/revisions\/2373"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}