Spencer Coppage for Virginia Tech
The bizarre Salterella from the Cambrian Period may hold the key to understanding how the first animals built skeletons. It is “something incredible and beautiful”.
During the early Cambrian Period, most large animal groups developed own ways of creating mineralized skeletons or shells.
Once evolved, these techniques lasted for more than 540 million years, explains . But among the few exceptions to this enduring pattern is Salterellaa small organism that flourished during the early Cambrian.
This strange fossil hundreds of millions of years old has developed a conical shell around the body and then filling the shell cavity with carefully selected minerals to form a tight inner lining.
“This makes Salterella difficult to place on the tree of life,” said Prescott Vayda, a graduate student in geosciences and author of a new paper on the enigmatic Salterella, published in Journal of Paleontology.
“Finding the correct place for these fossils is important for understanding how animals evolved skeletons and shells“, stated the scientist.
Now, researchers believe the internal structure had a specific purpose, likely related to enhanced power or stability.
These curious creatures must also have some kind of appendage to collect and grasp minerals.
“We are starting to get a picture of their biology and where they fit into the larger web of life”, points out Vayda. It is about “truly learning where we came from and the history of life on Earth, what it is something incredible and beautiful“.
