"This is
Since 2004, a research team composed of experts such as Professor Zhang Xiguang and Professor Hou Xianguang from the Institute of Paleontology of Yunnan University has begun to "accompany with stone
A "dust" glimpses the mystery of life
A "dust" glimpses the mystery of life Under the microscope, a fossil, the size of a sesame
"Over the years, we have beaten stones hundreds of times, collected from fossils of Chengjiang Biota and
Through the observation of the scanning electron microscope, the body structure of the arthropod in the fossil is clear
The head of the ancient bug, the "wisdom" of modern life
The head of the ancient bug, the "wisdom" of modern life In the long history of life evolution, the origin of animal colony behavior has always been an unresolved world problem.
"We compared this fossil ecological phenomenon with the behavior of living arthropods, and found that the cluster behavior may be a behavioral strategy formed by the sea worm during the collective migration process, which means that the organisms more than 500 million years ago
This is the oldest fossil record indicating the colony behavior of arthropods, proving that this complex ecological phenomenon has evolved during the construction of the embryonic marine ecosystem in the early Cambrian
The research team used multidisciplinary methods to systematically display the neural structure of the main groups of early arthropods, created a new framework for the evolution of early arthropods, reconstructed the evolutionary model of the nervous system during their early evolution, and created the current global paleontology The academic circle pays attention to one of the hot topics of neuropaleontology, and leads the international frontier direction in this field
"The transition type is the key to the study of life evolution
The ancient stone will "sing"
The ancient stone will "sing" In 2015, the team first introduced the use of "micro-CT technology" to conduct non-destructive research on the three-dimensional structure of animals preserved in Chengjiang fossils
Although micro-CT technology can clearly understand the internal microstructure of the sample without destroying the sample, it is an unprecedented thing to scan Chengjiang fossils with micro-CT technology
Micro-CT technology breaks through the limitations of the two-dimensional morphological research of traditional optical microscopes, and realizes the "0 to 1 breakthrough" in paleontological research technology
Based on the reliable information extracted by CT, the team confirmed that the ancestors of arthropods were growth and development of arthropods.
"Palaeontology is an unpopular subject.
(Our reporter Zhang Yong, our correspondent Tang Panwei)
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