Two tiny fossils, each smaller than an aspirin pill, contain fossilized nerve tissue from 508 million years ago. The bug-like Cambrian creatures could help scientists piece together the evolutionary history of modern-day spiders and scorpions.
Since that initial discovery 10 years ago, preserved nerve tissue has been found in more than a dozen Cambrian fossils, most of them arthropods, Ortega-Hernández said.
The researchers suspect that the arthropod also had seven pairs of tiny appendages, two fangs, and six pairs of little limbs; that's based on a 2019 study, published in the journal He found that locked inside both of these inconspicuous arthropods were well-preserved nervous systems. The fossilized nerves look like inky black splotches, because the fossilization process transformed the tissue into organicIn the Smithsonian fossil, a bulbous eye can be seen in the arthropod's head and a nerve cord can be clearly seen running down the length of its belly, with some nerves jutting out from its underside.
"We can see there's something in there, but we don't have enough resolution to be able to say, 'Oh, it's definitely organized in this way or that way,'" Ortega-Hernández said.M. symmetrica
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