Melbournopterus

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Melbournopterus
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Melbournopterus

Caster & Kjellesvig-Waering, 1953

Melbournopterus is a genus of prehistoric chelicerate or brachiopod, known from the Upper Silurian of Australia. It is of uncertain taxonomic placement within the subphylum Chelicerata. [1] Lamsdell, Percival and Poschmann (2013) argued that Melbournopterus crossotus is not a chelicerate at all, and interpreted its type specimen as the dorsal valve of a craniate brachiopod. [2]

Contents

Description

If Melbournopterus is a chelicerate, it is distinguished by its prosoma (head), which is bell-shaped and emarginate in front, with subrectangular compound eyes located posteriorly on the prosoma, which strongly converge anteriorly. It was small in size, and its abdomen and appendages are unknown. [3]

Species

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Metastoma</span>

The metastoma is a ventral single plate located in the opisthosoma of non-arachnid dekatriatan chelicerates such as eurypterids, chasmataspidids and the genus Houia. The metastoma located between the base of 6th prosomal appendage pair and may had functioned as part of the animal's feeding structures. It most likely represented a fused appendage pair originated from somite 7, thus homologous to the chilaria of horseshoe crab and 4th walking leg pair of sea spider. In eurypterids, the plate was typically cordate (heart-shaped) in shape, though differed in shape in some genera, such as Megalograptus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Timeline of eurypterid research</span>

This timeline of eurypterid research is a chronologically ordered list of important fossil discoveries, controversies of interpretation, and taxonomic revisions of eurypterids, a group of extinct aquatic arthropods closely related to modern arachnids and horseshoe crabs that lived during the Paleozoic Era.

References

  1. Jason A. Dunlop; David Penney; Denise Jekel; with additional contributions from Lyall I. Anderson, Simon J. Braddy; James C. Lamsdell; Paul A. Selden & O. Erik Tetlie (2011). "A summary list of fossil spiders and their relatives". In Norman I. Platnick (ed.). NMBE - World Spider Catalog, version 19.5 (PDF). American Museum of Natural History. Retrieved May 21, 2011.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  2. James C. Lamsdell; Ian G. Percival & Markus Poschmann (2013). "The problematic 'chelicerate' Melbournopterus crossotus Caster & Kjellesvig-Waering: a case of mistaken identity". Alcheringa: An Australasian Journal of Palaeontology. 37 (3): 344–348. doi:10.1080/03115518.2013.764681. S2CID   128814947.
  3. Størmer, L 1955. Merostomata. Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology, Part P Arthropoda 2, Chelicerata, P39.