Complexity and diversity of eyes in Early Cambrian ecosystems

Here we report exceptionally preserved non-biomineralized compound eyes of a non-trilobite arthropod Cindarella eucalla from the lower Cambrian Chengjiang Lagerstätte, China. The specimen represents the oldest microanatomical evidence confirming the occurrence of highly developed vision in the early Cambrian, over 2,000 ommatidia in each eye. Moreover, a quantitative analysis of the distribution of eyes related to life habit, feeding types and phyla respectively, from the Chengjiang biota indicates that specimens with eyes mostly belong to the arthropods and they usually were actively mobile epifaunal and nektonic forms as hunters or scavengers. Arthropods took the lead in evolution of ‘good vision’ and domination in Cambrian communities, which supports the hypothesis that the origin and evolution of ‘good vision’ was a key trait that promoted preferential diversification and formed the foundation of modern benthic ecosystems in the early Cambrian ocean.

• Publication year

  2013

• Venue

  Scientific Reports

• Publication date

  2013-09-25

• Fields of study

  Biology, Geology, Medicine, Environmental Science

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1038/srep02751PMID 24067397PMCID 3783037
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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