{"id":20823,"date":"2026-06-01T22:43:35","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T22:43:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/06\/01\/forgotten-fossil-helps-rewrite-part-of-animal-evolution-astrobiology-com\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T22:43:35","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T22:43:35","slug":"forgotten-fossil-helps-rewrite-part-of-animal-evolution-astrobiology-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/06\/01\/forgotten-fossil-helps-rewrite-part-of-animal-evolution-astrobiology-com\/","title":{"rendered":"Forgotten Fossil Helps Rewrite Part Of Animal Evolution – astrobiology.com"},"content":{"rendered":"

New research helps to fill in questions about the so-called \u201cFurongian gap\u201d from about 497 million to 485 million years ago, when palaeontologists previously thought there were far fewer fossils than periods before or after it.
\u201cPalaeontologists have wondered whether this time of markedly less diversity of life could be linked to ocean chemistry, cooling climates or environmental instability,\u201d says corresponding author Dr Russell Bicknell, from Flinders University\u2019s College of Science and Engineering.
\u201cBut perhaps we haven\u2019t been looking at the right sedimentary rocks or fossil-bearing deposits to get a clear picture of the kinds of soft-bodied organisms and early anthropods (animals with exoskeletons) which inhabited the planet at that time.\u201d
An international team led by Flinders University research fellow Dr Bicknell and Dr Julien Kimmig from Germany\u2019s Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have described a new 500-million-old fossil anthropod related to the lineage which evolved into spiders and scorpions.
Named Magnicornaspis garwoodi, this enigmatic animal features broad head shields, segmented bodies and defensive spines that belong to the corcoraniids group.
Found near Qu\u00e9bec in Canada and preserved within the Rivi\u00e8re-du-Loup Formation, the specimen was one of only a handful of species known from the Cambrian and Ordovician.
The researchers \u2013 who include Dr Aaron Goodman from the University of Illinois, Thomas Turner (Flinders University honours student and palaeoartist) and Dr Patrick Smith (Macquarie University) \u2013 say the fossil is important because it helps to fill blanks in fossil history. It joins a growing list of Furongian sites that challenge the notion of a barren late-Cambrian world.
Each new Furongian fossil discovery narrows this supposed gap and reveals increasingly sophisticated ecosystems thriving during the late Cambrian.
\u201cTogether, these discoveries increasingly suggest that Furongian ecosystems remained diverse and ecologically complex,\u201d says ARC DECRA research fellow Dr Bicknell, who investigated the long-shelved museum specimen during his time at the American Museum of Natural History.
Depiction of Magnicornaspis garwoodi gen. et sp. nov. USNM PAL 801575. A Complete specimen. Boxes with solid lines show close ups C and D. Boxes with dotted lines show areas that were imaged using SEM and EDS maps in Figs. 3 and 4. B Line drawing of specimen. C Close up of cephalon showing hypertrophied spine. D Close up of pygidium, showing terminal spine. E Reconstruction of Magnicornaspis garwoodi gen. et sp. nov. (A, C, D) under flash photography. Abbreviations: On: optical notch. T: thoracic tergite. Numbers (1\u20137) indicate thoracic tergite numbers — BMC Biology<\/strong><\/em>
\u201cImportantly, it comes from a geological setting not previously recognised for exceptional preservation.\u201d
Research co-author Dr Kimmig says the discovery fits within a broader pattern emerging over the past two decades.
\u201cThe Furongian may not represent a true collapse in biodiversity, but rather a gap where scientists have looked and what kinds of rocks have been studied,\u201d says Dr Kimmig, from the KIT Institute of Applied Geosciences and Head of Palaeontology and Evolution at Staatliches Museum f\u00fcr Naturkunde Karlsruhe.
The new fossil is named after Russell Garwood, a Manchester University palaeontologist who has spent his career understanding chelicerate evolution. The specimen was originally collected in 1962 during geological mapping near Qu\u00e9bec and comes from black shales within the Rivi\u00e8re-du-Loup Formation, a unit deposited in relatively deep marine slope environments during the late Cambrian.
The specimen has been stored as part of the Smithsonian collections in Washington DC for decades.
\u201cThis highlights one of the most important aspects of palaeontology: major discoveries do not always emerge directly from fieldwork,\u201d adds Dr Kimmig.
\u201cMuseum collections contain enormous quantities of under-studied material collected during geological surveys and expeditions over the past century.
\u201cRevisiting these collections with modern techniques can fundamentally reshape understanding of ancient ecosystems.\u201d
The article \u2013 \u201cNew exceptionally preserved arthropod from the Furongian of Canada\u201d (2026) by Russell DC Bicknell), Julien Kimmig, Aaron Goodman (University of Illinois, US), Thomas Turner (Flinders) and Patrick M Smith (Macquarie University) \u2013 is published in BMC Biology. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1186\/s12915-026-02617-4<\/a>
New exceptionally preserved arthropod from the Furongian of Canada<\/a>, — BMC Biology<\/strong><\/em>
Astrobiology,<\/p>\n

Biologist, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Biologist and Payload integrator, Editor of NASAWatch.com and Astrobiology.com, Lapsed climber, Explorer, Synaesthete, Former Challenger Center board member \ud83d\udd96\ud83c\udffb
2026 \u00a9 Reston Communications. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New research helps to fill in questions about the so-called \u201cFurongian gap\u201d from about 497 million to 485 million years ago, when palaeontologists previously thought there were far fewer fossils than periods before or after it.\u201cPalaeontologists have wondered whether this time of markedly less diversity of life could be linked to ocean chemistry, cooling climates […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20824,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20823\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}