Metamorphosis in a Silurian barnacle.
Exceptionally preserved fossils from the Wenlock Series (Silurian) of Herefordshire, UK, provide unique evidence of metamorphosis from free-swimming cyprid larva to attached juvenile in a Palaeozoic barnacle. The larva had large brush-like anterior limbs. The juvenile shows the head transformed into a stalk and the development of the primordial condition of five mineralized plates within the carapace. The discovery of a cyprid larva indicates that crown group cirripedes had evolved by the Silurian.
Briggs
Derek E G
DE
Yale University, Department of Geology and Geophysics, PO Box 208109, New Haven, CT 06520-8109, USA. derek.briggs@yale.edu
Sutton
Mark D
MD
Siveter
David J
DJ
Siveter
Derek J
DJ
D000818:Animals; D005580:Fossils; D007814:Larva / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000254:growth & development; D008675:Metamorphosis, Biological; D001468:Thoracica / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000145:classification / Q000254:growth & development*; D006113:United Kingdom