Redkinia

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Redkinia
Temporal range: Ediacaran
Scientific classification OOjs UI icon edit-ltr.svg
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: incertae sedis
Genus:† Redkinia
Sokolov,1977
Species
  • R. spinosa

Redkinia is a genus of rod-like Ediacaran fossil from Russia, fringed with large and small projections, which has been putatively compared with the mandibles of an arthropod. It is a monotypic genus, containing only Redkinia spinosa.

Contents

Discovery

The fossil material of Redkinia was found from the Starorusskaya Formation of the East European Platform, Northwestern Russia and named in 1977. [1] [2]

Description

Redkinia is a slightly curved, tapering rod-like fossil, bearing large and small projections, usually interpreted as serrations. The largest known fossil is up to 1,500 μm (0.06 in) in length. [3] [1] The larger spikes appear to increase in size from one end of the rod to the other, with the smaller spikes sitting inbetween the large ones. [4]

Affinites

The affinities of Redkinia remain unknown, with it being interpreted as a disarticulated polychaete jaw in 1977, [2] and later to mandible-like jaws of a stem-arthropod. [5] Some researchers have suggested the fossils to be the mouthparts of the mollusc-like organisms Wiwaxia or Kimberella . [6] It has also been compared to other microfossils, namely Cochleatina , a serrated spiral ribbon, although it has been noted that the similarities may be homologous. [7] Some studies have also noted that if it is a jaw, it would have been used for filter-feeding rather than crushing. [8] [4] One study has also noted that the fossils may not represent jaws due to delicate appearance of the serrations, and also to the age of the fossil material, although due to its complex morphology and construction, it may still represent a candidate for early bilaterian organisms. [3]

References

  1. 1 2 Golubkova, E. Yu.; Kushim, E. A.; Kuznetsov, A. B.; Yanovskii, A. S.; Maslov, A. V.; Shvedov, S. D.; Plotkina, Yu. V. (March 2018). "Redkinian Biota of Macroscopic Fossils from the Northwestern East European Platform (South Ladoga Region)". Doklady Earth Sciences. 479 (1): 300–304. doi:10.1134/S1028334X18030169.
  2. 1 2 Sokolov, B. S. (1977). "Organic world of the Earth on the way to the Phanerozoic differentiation". USSR academy of sciences: 423–444.
  3. 1 2 Slater, Ben J.; Bohlin, Madeleine S. (September 2022). "Animal origins: The record from organic microfossils". Earth-Science Reviews. 232: 104107. doi:10.1016/j.earscirev.2022.104107.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: article number as page number (link)
  4. 1 2 Fedonkin, Mikhail A. (2003). "The origin of the Metazoa in the light of the Proterozoic fossil record". Paleontological Research. 7 (1): 9–41. doi:10.2517/prpsj.7.9.
  5. ↑ Conway Morris, S. (1993). "The fossil record and the early evolution of the Metazoa" . Nature. 361 (6409): 219–225. Bibcode:1993Natur.361..219M. doi:10.1038/361219a0. S2CID   86276440.
  6. ↑ Waggoner, Ben (December 1998). "Interpreting the Earliest Metazoan Fossils: What Can We Learn?". American Zoologist. 38 (6): 975–982. doi:10.1093/icb/38.6.975.
  7. ↑ Slater, Ben J.; Harvey, Thomas H. P.; Bekker, Andrey; Butterfield, Nicholas J. (September 2020). "Cochleatina : an enigmatic Ediacaran–Cambrian survivor among small carbonaceous fossils (SCF s )". Palaeontology. 63 (5): 733–752. doi:10.1111/pala.12484.
  8. ↑ McMenamin, M. A. S. (2003). "Origin and Early Evolution of Predators". Predator-Prey Interactions in the Fossil Record. Topics in Geobiology. Vol. 20. pp. 379–400. doi:10.1007/978-1-4615-0161-9_17. ISBN   978-0-306-47489-7.
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