Tachypleus syriacus (Woodward)—a sexually dimorphic Cretaceous crown limulid reveals underestimated horseshoe crab divergence times

Lamsdell, James C.; McKenzie, S.

doi:10.1007/s13127-015-0229-3

Cited by 33 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 48 publications

(57 reference statements)

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“…). The tree topology is congruent with that from previous analyses (Lamsdell ; Lamsdell and McKenzie ; Lamsdell et al . ; Selden et al .…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 89%

“…() and Selden et al . (), combined with that of Lamsdell and McKenzie (). The resulting matrix comprises 252 characters coded for 105 taxa and is available in MorphoBank (Lamsdell ).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…), or including xiphosurans as part of a broader analysis of chelicerate phylogeny (Shultz ; Garwood and Dunlop ). One recent phylogenetic analysis did include a number of xiphosurids (Lamsdell and McKenzie ), but limited itself only to a subset of Mesozoic and Cenozoic taxa. A number of these analyses have suggested that synziphosurines are an unnatural grouping of stem euchelicerates and stem dekatriatans (Lamsdell ; Lamsdell et al .…”

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confidence: 99%

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Horseshoe crab phylogeny and independent colonizations of fresh water: ecological invasion as a driver for morphological innovation

Lamsdell

2015

Palaeontology

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159

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Xiphosurids are an archaic group of aquatic chelicerate arthropods, generally known by the colloquial misnomer of 'horseshoe crabs'. Known from marine environments as far back as the early Ordovician, horseshoe crabs are generally considered 'living fossils'descendants of a bradytelic lineage exhibiting little morphological or ecological variation throughout geological time. However, xiphosurids are known from freshwater sediments in the Palaeozoic and Mesozoic; furthermore, the contention that xiphosurids show little morphological variation has never been tested empirically. Attempts to test this are hampered by the lack of a modern phylogenetic framework with which to explore different evolutionary scenarios. Here, I present a phylogenetic analysis of Xiphosurida and explore patterns of morphospace and environmental occupation of the group throughout the Phanerozoic. Xiphosurids are shown to have invaded non-marine environments independently at least five times throughout their evolutionary history, twice resulting in the radiation of major cladesbellinurines and austrolimulidsthat occupied novel regions of morphospace. These clades show a convergent ecological pattern of differentiation, speciation and subsequent extinction. Horseshoe crabs are shown to have a more dynamic and complex evolutionary history than previously supposed, with the extant species representing only a fraction of the group's past ecological and morphological diversity.

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“…). The tree topology is congruent with that from previous analyses (Lamsdell ; Lamsdell and McKenzie ; Lamsdell et al . ; Selden et al .…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 89%

“…() and Selden et al . (), combined with that of Lamsdell and McKenzie (). The resulting matrix comprises 252 characters coded for 105 taxa and is available in MorphoBank (Lamsdell ).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Horseshoe crab phylogeny and independent colonizations of fresh water: ecological invasion as a driver for morphological innovation

Lamsdell

2015

Palaeontology

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159

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“…The more appropriate term of 'stabilomorph' was proposed with the discovery of Limulus darwini (Kin and Blażejowski, 2014); it refers to morphological stability over evolutionary history, at the genus level. However, long branches unbroken by unsampled extinct species may have significantly underestimated divergence times among crown Xiphosurida (Lamsdell and McKenzie, 2015), though this assertion has not yet been tested with a divergence time analysis.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fossil Calibrations for the Arthropod Tree of Life

Wolfe

Daley

Legg³

et al. 2016

Preprint

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Fossil age data and molecular sequences are increasingly combined to establish a timescale for the Tree of Life. Arthropods, as the most species-rich and morphologically disparate animal phylum, have received substantial attention, particularly with regard to questions such as the timing of habitat shifts (e.g., terrestrialisation), genome evolution (e.g., gene family duplication and functional evolution), origins of novel characters and behaviours (e.g., wings and flight, venom, silk), biogeography, rate of diversification (e.g., Cambrian explosion, insect coevolution with angiosperms, evolution of crab body plans), and the evolution of arthropod microbiomes. We present herein a series of rigorously vetted calibration fossils for arthropod evolutionary history, taking into account recently published guidelines for best practice in fossil calibration. These are restricted to Palaeozoic and Mesozoic fossils, no deeper than ordinal taxonomic level, nonetheless resulting in 79 fossil calibrations for 101 clades. This work is especially timely owing to the rapid growth of molecular sequence data and the fact that many included fossils have been described within the last five years. This contribution provides a resource for systematists and other biologists interested in deep-time questions in arthropod evolution.

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“…Xiphosurida have existed for~480 Myr (Lamsdell, 2013(Lamsdell, , 2016, with the earliest unequivocal representatives found in the Upper Ordovician of Manitoba, Canada (Rudkin et al, 2008), apparently preceded by finds of putative Xiphosurida from the Lower Ordovician of Morocco (Van Roy et al, 2010). Only four species of horseshoe crabs exist today, all of which are members of Limulidae Zittel, 1885( = Mesolimulidae Størmer, 1952 and characterized by their large crescentic prosomal shield and the fusion of the opisthosomal tergites (Lamsdell and McKenzie, 2015). The recently published study of the Xiphosura (equivalent to total group Xiphosurida) phylogeny (Lamsdell, 2016) has interesting implications.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Limulitella tejraensis, a new species of limulid (Chelicerata, Xiphosura) from the Middle Triassic of southern Tunisia (Saharan Platform)

Błażejowski¹,

Niedźwiedzki²,

Boukhalfa³

et al. 2017

J. Paleontol.

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Abstract.-Numerous well-preserved remains of a new limulid species from the Anisian-lower Ladinian (Middle Triassic) of the Tejra section of southern Tunisia are described. Comparisons are made with limulids from the Triassic deposits of Europe and Australia. The new specimens are congeneric with the type species of Limulitella, but show some morphological differences. Here we describe Limulitella tejraensis new species, a small limulid with semicircular prosoma, small and triangular opisthosoma, well-defined axial ridge, and pleurae along both ridges of the opisthosoma. The Tunisian Limulitella fossils are associated with conchostracans, bivalves, gastropods, and microconchids. Sedimentological and paleontological data from the Tejra section suggest freshwater to brackishwater conditions during the formation of the fossil-bearing interval and the influence of marine transgression into a playa-like environment. Supposed adaptation to the stressful environment sheds new light on the origin and survival of the extant limulines. This is the first report of limulid body fossils from the Triassic of North Africa and the first documentation of Limulitella in the Middle Triassic of northern Gondwanaland.

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Tachypleus syriacus (Woodward)—a sexually dimorphic Cretaceous crown limulid reveals underestimated horseshoe crab divergence times

Cited by 33 publications

References 48 publications

Horseshoe crab phylogeny and independent colonizations of fresh water: ecological invasion as a driver for morphological innovation

Horseshoe crab phylogeny and independent colonizations of fresh water: ecological invasion as a driver for morphological innovation

Fossil Calibrations for the Arthropod Tree of Life

Limulitella tejraensis, a new species of limulid (Chelicerata, Xiphosura) from the Middle Triassic of southern Tunisia (Saharan Platform)

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