Buenellus

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Buenellus higginsi
Temporal range: Atdabanian
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Buenellus.jpg
Buenellus higginsi fossils at the Geological Museum, Copenhagen
Scientific classification
Kingdom:
Phylum:
Class:
Order:
Suborder:
Superfamily:
"Nevadioidea" [1]
Family:
"Nevadiidae"
Genus:
Buenellus

Blaker, 1988
Species:
B. higginsi
Binomial name
Buenellus higginsi
Blaker, 1988

Buenellus higginsi is an average size (about 5 centimetres or 2.0 inches) trilobite, which lived during the Lower Cambrian period, in what is now North-West Greenland. It is a prominent member of the Sirius Passet fauna. Buenellus higginsi is the only known species in the genus Buenellus (i.e., the genus is monotypic).

Contents

Etymology

The genus name is a contraction of Buen, from the formation in which it was first collected, and Olenellus , a somewhat related trilobite genus. The species specific epithet honors A. Higgins, who discovered the Sirius Passet Lagerstätte in 1984 during the Geological Survey of Greenland.

Description

The general outline of the body is rounded n the front third, parallel sided in the middle third, and progressively tapering backwards in the back third, ending at an angle of approximately 45° with the midline. The headshield (or cephalon is approximately ⅝× as long as it is wide. The (in this case only slightly) vaulted central axis of the head or glabella tapers gently forward and does not reach the anterior margin. The outer backside of the cephalon (or genal angle) has short genal spines. The thorax has 17 or 18 articulating segments, maintaining width or widening slightly backwards up to the 8th segment, then tapering posteriorly. The posterior segment may be fused with the anterior part of a simple and small pygidium. Pleural spines are short, and the pleural regions are only slightly wider than the axis. [2] [3]

Differences with other Nevadiidae

The general shape of the body of other species in the Nevadid family (like Nevadia and Nevadella ) is shorter, with the greatest width across the back of the cephalon, and the entire thorax tapering backwards.

Distribution

Buenellus higginsi has been collected from early to middle Atdabanian deposits at the lower Buen Formation (“Nevadella” Zone), Sirius Passet lagerstätte at its junction with the J. P. Koch Fjord, Peary Land, Greenland 82°47′6″N106°12′7″E / 82.78500°N 106.20194°E / 82.78500; 106.20194 . It has also been reported from Novaya Zemlya, Russian Republic.

Ecology

Mineral-filled gut tracts in B. higginsi suggest they were not filled with sediment at the time of burial, and that the species was a predator of soft prey.

Healed injuries, some of which are the result of unsuccessful predaceous attacks, are not uncommon in B. higginsi. Carnivory on B. higginsi is also implied by the remains of anomalocaridids and other potential predators. [4]

Other exoskeletons show evidence of post-mortem disruption, perhaps because of scavenging. Buenellus higginsi, one of the earliest known trilobites from Laurentia, seems to have played an important role in the Sirius Passet ecosystem, serving both as predator on, and prey for, contemporary animals. [5]

Habitat

Buenellus higginsi was probably a marine bottom dweller, that lived in deeper water. This may be deduced from the dominance of eyeless forms and the absence of seaweeds at the collection site. [6]

Soft tissue preservation

Many specimens of B. higginsi show some form of exceptionally preserved, non-biomineralised tissue. Structures interpreted as alimentary tracts and probable digestive glands are commonly preserved. The slender antennas are rarely preserved. [5]

Related Research Articles

Sirius Passet

Sirius Passet is a Cambrian Lagerstätte in Greenland. The Sirius Passet Lagerstätte was named after the Sirius sledge patrol that operates in North Greenland. It comprises six places in Nansen Land, on the east shore of J.P. Koch Fjord in the far north of Greenland. It was discovered in 1984 by A. Higgins of the Geological Survey of Greenland. A preliminary account was published by Simon Conway Morris and others in 1987 and expeditions led by J. S. Peel and Conway Morris have returned to the site several times between 1989 and the present. A field collection of perhaps 10,000 fossil specimens has been amassed. It is a part of the Buen Formation.

<i>Kleptothule</i>

Kleptothule rasmusseni is a small, elongated trilobite, about 3 cm in length, and about 5 to 6 mm in width, from the Sirius Passet Lagerstätte. It is currently placed in the family Nevadiidae, though this may change with further study.

<i>Wanneria</i>

Wanneria is an extinct genus from a well-known class of fossil marine arthropods, the trilobites. It lived during the later part of the Botomian stage, which lasted from approximately 524 to 518.5 million years ago. This faunal stage was part of the Cambrian Period. Wanneria walcottana is the only known species in this genus.

<i>Nevadella</i>

Nevadella is an extinct genus of trilobites, fossil marine arthropods, with species of average size. It lived during the late Atdabanian stage, which lasted from 530 to 524 million years ago during the early part of the Cambrian Period.

<i>Isoxys</i> Genus of extinct arthropods

Isoxys is a genus of extinct, pelagic bivalved arthropod; the various species may have been roam-swimming predators. It had a pair of large spherical eyes, and two large appendages It is possible that these appendages are homologous to the great appendages of radiodonts and megacheirans.

<i>Kuamaia</i> Extinct genus of arthropods

Kuamaia is an extinct genus of artiopodan in the phylum Arthropoda. Fossils of the type species K. lata were discovered in the Chengjiang biota. The other species in the genus,K. muricata has also been identified there, but neither species has been found elsewhere.

<i>Molaria</i> Extinct genus of arthropods

Molaria is a genus of Cambrian arthropod, the type species M. spinifera is known from the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale. 144 specimens of Molaria are known from the Greater Phyllopod bed, where they comprise 0.27% of the community. A second species M. steini was described from the Sirius Passet in Greenland in 2017.

<i>Eoredlichia</i> Extinct genus of trilobites

Eoredlichia is an extinct genus of trilobite of average to large size. It lived during the early Cambrian in the Chengjiang fauna of Yunnan, China, and in Australia and Thailand. Eoredlichia is compounded of the Greek ἠώς and Redlichia, a later but related genus, so it means "early Redlichia". The species epithet intermedia means intermediate, indicating it is morphologically intermediate between other species. Eofallotaspis gives rise to Lemdadella, and thence to Eoredlichia and the other Redlichiidae.

<i>Ooedigera</i> Ovoid Cambrian animal with a bulbous tail

Ooedigera peeli is an extinct vetulicolian from the Early Cambrian of North Greenland. The front body was flattened horizontally, oval-shaped, likely bearing a reticulated or anastomosing pattern, and had 5 evenly-spaced gill pouches along the midline. The tail was also bulbous and flattened horizontally, but was divided into 7 plates connected by flexible membranes, allowing movement. Ooedigera likely swam by moving side-to-side like a fish. It may have lived in an oxygen minimum zone alongside several predators in an ecosystem based on chemosynthetic microbial mats, and was possibly a deposit or filter feeder living near the seafloor.

<i>Aaveqaspis</i> Extinct marine arthropod

Aaveqaspis is a genus of small marine arthropods of unclear affiliation, that lived during the early Cambrian period. Fossil remains of Aaveqaspis were collected from the Lower Cambrian Sirius Passet fossil-Lagerstätte of North Greenland. Aaveqaspis looks like a soft eyeless trilobite with a weakly defined axis, a headshield with stubby genal spines, 5 thorax segments also ending in stubby genal spines, and a tailshield (pygidium) with a pair of massive tusk-like spines, and two smaller spines near the end of the axis. The only species presently known is A. inesoni.

<i>Buenaspis</i> Small cambrian anthropod

Buenaspis is a genus of small marine arthropods in the family Liwiidae, that lived during the early Cambrian period. Fossil remains of Buenaspis were collected from the Lower Cambrian Sirius Passet Lagerstätte of North Greenland. Buenaspis looks like a soft eyeless trilobite. It has a headshield slightly larger than the tailshield (pygidium), and in between them six thoracic body segments (somites). The genus is monotypic, its sole species being Buenaspis forteyi.

Limniphacos is a genus of trilobites, a well known group of marine arthropods. The genus so far contains one species, L. perspicullum.

Mesolenellus is an extinct genus of trilobites that lived during the lower Cambrian (Botomian), found in Greenland and Spitsbergen.

<i>Emigrantia</i>

Emigrantia is an extinct genus of trilobites, fossil marine arthropods, of small to average size. It lived during the Toyonian stage, in what is today the South-Western United States. Emigrantia can easily be distinguished from other trilobites by the sturdy but not inflated genal spines, that are attached at midlength of the cephalon, in combination with effaced features of the raised axial area of the head shield.

Ovatoryctocara is a genus of small corynexochid trilobites from the Cambrian, that lived in what now are Siberia, China, Greenland and Canada (Newfoundland). Ovatoryctocara can be recognised by the combination of the following characters: the central raised area of the cephalon is approximately cylindrical and has two rows of four triangular or round pits. The thorax only has 5 or 6 segments. The tailshield has an axis of 6 to 12 rings, the pleural furrows are well developed and the border is absent or narrow as a hair.

<i>Cedaria</i>

Cedaria is a small, rather flat trilobite with an oval outline, a headshield and tailshield of approximately the same size, 7 articulating segments in the middle part of the body and spines at the back edges of the headshield that reach halflength of the body. Cedaria lived during the early part of the Upper Cambrian (Dresbachian), and is especially abundant in the Weeks Formation.

Buen Formation Cambrian Lagerstätte in northern Greenland

The Buen Formation is a geologic formation and Lagerstätte in the north of Greenland. The shale preserves fossils dating back to the Early Cambrian period.

<i>Phragmochaeta canicularis</i> Extinct annelid

Phragmochaeta canicularis is an extinct animal belonging to the annelids and lived in the Early Cambrian. Fossils have only been found in the Buen Formation at the Sirius Passet Lagerstätte, Greenland and the animal is probably the first polychaete.

<i>Arthroaspis</i> Extinct genus of arthropods

Arthroaspis is an extinct genus of arthropod known from the Cambrian aged Sirius Passet Lagerstatte in Greenland. It is relatively large in size for Cambrian arthropods, attaining a length of up to 215 mm. It is a common component of the Passet fauna, being located at multiple localities within the formation. It possessed 14 tergites. In the describing paper, it was recovered as a member of a non-monophyletic Artiopoda.

References

  1. Lieberman, B.S. (1998). "Cladistic Analysis of the Early Cambrian Olenelloid Trilobites" (PDF). Journal of Paleontology. 72, part 1: 59–78. doi:10.1017/S0022336000024021.[ permanent dead link ]
  2. Mark R. Blaker & John S. Peel (1997). Lower Cambrian trilobites from North Greenland. Meddelelser om Grønland. Geoscience. 35. ISBN   978-87-635-1241-1.
  3. H. B. Whittington; et al. (1997). "Introduction, Order Agnostida, Order Redlichiida". Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology. Part O, Revised. Trilobita.
  4. Loren E. Babcock (2002). Anatomy, paleoecology, and taphonomy of the trilobite Buenellus from the Sirius Passet biota (Cambrian), North Greenland. Geological Society of America Annual Meeting. Denver, Colorado. paper no. 75-8.
  5. 1 2 Loren E. Babcock & John S. Peel (2003). "Palaeobiology, taphonomy and stratigraphic significance of the trilobite Buenellus from the Sirius Passet biota, Cambrian of North Greenland". Memoirs of the Association of Australasian Palaeontologists. 34: 401–418.
  6. John S. Peel & Martin Stein (2009). "A new arthropod from the Lower Cambrian Sirius Passet fossil-Lagerstätten of North Greenland" (PDF). Bulletin of Geosciences . 84 (4): 625–630. doi: 10.3140/bull.geosci.1158 .