title: Preservation of three-dimensional anatomy in phosphatized fossil arthropods enriches evolutionary inference.
abstract: External and internal morphological characters of extant and fossil organisms are crucial to establishing their systematic position, ecological role and evolutionary trends. The lack of internal characters and soft-tissue preservation in many arthropod fossils, however, impedes comprehensive phylogenetic analyses and species descriptions according to taxonomic standards for Recent organisms. We found well-preserved three-dimensional anatomy in mineralized arthropods from Paleogene fissure fillings and demonstrate the value of these fossils by utilizing digitally reconstructed anatomical structure of a hister beetle. The new anatomical data facilitate a refinement of the species diagnosis and allowed us to reject a previous hypothesis of close phylogenetic relationship to an extant congeneric species. Our findings suggest that mineralized fossils, even those of macroscopically poor preservation, constitute a rich but yet largely unexploited source of anatomical data for fossil arthropods.
authors: Steinmann Institute for Geology, Mineralogy and Paleontology, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany.
authors: Achim H
authors: AH
authors: Schwermann
authors: ANKA/Institute for Photon Science and Synchrotron Radiation, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Germany.
authors: Tomy
authors: T
authors: Dos Santos Rolo
authors: Department of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Clemson University, Clemson, United States.
authors: Michael S
authors: MS
authors: Caterino
authors: State Museum of Natural History Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany.
authors: Günter
authors: G
authors: Bechly
authors: Institute of Crop Science and Resource Conservation, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany.
authors: Heiko
authors: H
authors: Schmied
authors: ANKA/Institute for Photon Science and Synchrotron Radiation, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Germany.|Laboratory for Applications of Synchrotron Radiation, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany.
authors: Tilo
authors: T
authors: Baumbach
authors: ANKA/Institute for Photon Science and Synchrotron Radiation, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Germany.|Laboratory for Applications of Synchrotron Radiation, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany.
authors: Thomas
authors: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7390-1318
authors: T
authors: van de Kamp
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001181:Arthropods / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D005075:Biological Evolution; D002965:Classification / Q000379:methods*; D005580:Fossils; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional / Q000379:methods*
keywords: Histeridae; Paleogene; X-ray imaging; evolutionary biology; fissure fillings; genomics; internal characters; onthophilus spp. (coleopera: histeridae)