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Cambrian Period - Links Burgess Shale Walcott Quarry Fly-in http://www.burgess-shale.rom.on.ca/en/introduction/04-flying-video.php Anomalocaris The largest predator of the Cambrian http://burgess-shale.rom.on.ca/en/fossil-gallery/view-species.php?id=1&ref=i& Olenoides serratus The best-known trilobite from the Burgess Shale http://www.burgess-shale.rom.on.ca/en/fossil-gallery/view-species.php?id=11&m=1&&ref=i Ottoia prolifica The most common Burgess Shale worm http://www.burgess-shale.rom.on.ca/en/fossil-gallery/view-species.php?id=95&m=1&&ref=i Aysheaia pedunculata A very primitive arthropod-like animal with spiked legs http://www.burgess-shale.rom.on.ca/en/fossil-gallery/view-species.php?id=22&m=1&&ref=i Marrella An arthropod with long head spines http://www.burgess-shale.rom.on.ca/en/fossil-gallery/intro_7.php Nectocaris pteryx A squid-like predator with a pair of long tentacles http://www.burgess-shale.rom.on.ca/en/fossil-gallery/view-species.php?id=87&ref=i&&ref=i Hallucigenia A prickly worm with a twisted history http://www.burgess-shale.rom.on.ca/en/fossil-gallery/intro_4.php Opabinia regalis A primitive arthropod with five eyes and a long “nozzle” with claws http://burgess-shale.rom.on.ca/en/fossil-gallery/view-species.php?id=93&m=1&&ref=i Wiwaxia corrugata An armoured slug-like organism http://burgess-shale.rom.on.ca/en/fossil-gallery/view-species.php?id=132&ref=i& Pikaia gracilens A very primitive fish-like animal http://burgess-shale.rom.on.ca/en/fossil-gallery/view-species.php?id=101&ref=i& Royal Ontario Museum Burgess Shale Fossil Gallery http://www.burgess-shale.rom.on.ca/en/fossil-gallery/list-species.php CBC Report Burgess Shale fossil beds in Kootenay park yield 'astounding' finds http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/burgess-shale-fossil-beds-in-kootenay-park-yield-astounding-finds- 1.2742834 Fossils from the Maotianshan Shale, Chengjiang China http://www.fossilmuseum.net/Fossil_Sites/Chengjiang/Chengjiang-Fossils.htm Gentle Giants of the Cambrian Cambrian fossil is earliest example of large swimming filter-feeder. http://www.nature.com/news/prehistoric-weird-shrimps-traded-claws-for-nets-1.14934 1.

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Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections Volume 101
SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOLUME 101. NUMBER 15 FIFTH CONTRIBUTION TO NOMENCLATURE OF CAMBRIAN FOSSILS BY CHARLES E. RESSER Curator, Division of Stratigraphic Paleontology U. S. National Museum (Publication 3682) CITY OF WASHINGTON PUBLISHED BY THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION MAY 22, 1942 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOLUME 101, NUMBER 15 FIFTH CONTRIBUTION TO NOMENCLATURE OF CAMBRIAN FOSSILS BY CHARLES E. RESSER Curator, Division of Stratigraphic Paleontology U. S. National Museum (Publication 3682) CITY OF WASHINGTON PUBLISHED BY THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION MAY 12, 1942 Z?>i Botb QBafhtnore (prcee BALTIMORE, MD., U. S. A. ' FIFTH CONTRIBUTION TO NOMENCLATURE OF CAMBRIAN FOSSILS By CHARLES E. RESSER Curator, Division of Stratigraphic Paleonlolo<jy, U. S. National Museum This is the fifth in the series of papers designed to care for changes necessary in the names of Cambrian fossils. When the fourth paper was published it was hoped that further changes would be so few and so obvious that they could be incorporated in the Cambrian bibliographic summary, and would not be required to appear first in a separate paper. But even now it is impossible to gather all of the known errors for rectification in this paper. For example, correc- tion of some errors must await the opportunity to examine the speci- mens because the published illustrations, obviously showing incorrect generic determinations, are too poor to permit a proper understanding of the fossil. In the other instances where new generic designations are clearly indicated, erection of new genera should await the pub- lication of a paper with illustrations, because better-preserved speci- mens are in hand, or undescribed species portray the generic charac- teristics more fully and should therefore be chosen as the genotypes.
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The Origin and Evolution of Arthropods Graham E
INSIGHT REVIEW NATURE|Vol 457|12 February 2009|doi:10.1038/nature07890 The origin and evolution of arthropods Graham E. Budd1 & Maximilian J. Telford2 The past two decades have witnessed profound changes in our understanding of the evolution of arthropods. Many of these insights derive from the adoption of molecular methods by systematists and developmental biologists, prompting a radical reordering of the relationships among extant arthropod classes and their closest non-arthropod relatives, and shedding light on the developmental basis for the origins of key characteristics. A complementary source of data is the discovery of fossils from several spectacular Cambrian faunas. These fossils form well-characterized groupings, making the broad pattern of Cambrian arthropod systematics increasingly consensual. The arthropods are one of the most familiar and ubiquitous of all ani- Arthropods are monophyletic mal groups. They have far more species than any other phylum, yet Arthropods encompass a great diversity of animal taxa known from the living species are merely the surviving branches of a much greater the Cambrian to the present day. The four living groups — myriapods, diversity of extinct forms. One group of crustacean arthropods, the chelicerates, insects and crustaceans — are known collectively as the barnacles, was studied extensively by Charles Darwin. But the origins Euarthropoda. They are united by a set of distinctive features, most and the evolution of arthropods in general, embedded in what is now notably the clear segmentation of their bodies, a sclerotized cuticle and known as the Cambrian explosion, were a source of considerable con- jointed appendages. Even so, their great diversity has led to consider- cern to him, and he devoted a substantial and anxious section of On able debate over whether they had single (monophyletic) or multiple the Origin of Species1 to discussing this subject: “For instance, I cannot (polyphyletic) origins from a soft-bodied, legless ancestor.
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Introduction to the Trilobites: Morphology, Ecology, Macroevolution and More by Michelle M
Introduction to the Trilobites: Morphology, Ecology, Macroevolution and More By Michelle M. Casey1, Perry Kennard2, and Bruce S. Lieberman1, 3 1Biodiversity Institute, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, 66045, 2Earth Science Teacher, Southwest Middle School, USD497, and 3Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045 Middle level laboratory exercise for Earth or General Science; supported provided by National Science Foundation (NSF) grants DEB-1256993 and EF-1206757. Learning Goals and Pedagogy This lab is designed for middle level General Science or Earth Science classes. The learning goals for this lab are the following: 1) to familiarize students with the anatomy and terminology relating to trilobites; 2) to give students experience identifying morphologic structures on real fossil specimens 3) to highlight major events or trends in the evolutionary history and ecology of the Trilobita; and 4) to expose students to the study of macroevolution in the fossil record using trilobites as a case study. Introduction to the Trilobites The Trilobites are an extinct subphylum of the Arthropoda (the most diverse phylum on earth with nearly a million species described). Arthropoda also contains all fossil and living crustaceans, spiders, and insects as well as several other extinct groups. The trilobites were an extremely important and diverse type of marine invertebrates that lived during the Paleozoic Era. They only lived in the oceans but occurred in all types of marine environments, and ranged in size from less than a centimeter to almost a meter across. They were once one of the most successful of all animal groups and in certain fossil deposits, especially in the Cambrian, Ordovician, and Devonian periods, they are extremely abundant.
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The Evolution of Trilobite Body Patterning
ANRV309-EA35-14 ARI 20 March 2007 15:54 The Evolution of Trilobite Body Patterning Nigel C. Hughes Department of Earth Sciences, University of California, Riverside, California 92521; email: [email protected] Annu. Rev. Earth Planet. Sci. 2007. 35:401–34 Key Words First published online as a Review in Advance on Trilobita, trilobitomorph, segmentation, Cambrian, Ordovician, January 29, 2007 diversification, body plan The Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences is online at earth.annualreviews.org Abstract This article’s doi: The good fossil record of trilobite exoskeletal anatomy and on- 10.1146/annurev.earth.35.031306.140258 togeny, coupled with information on their nonbiomineralized tis- Copyright c 2007 by Annual Reviews. sues, permits analysis of how the trilobite body was organized and All rights reserved developed, and the various evolutionary modifications of such pat- 0084-6597/07/0530-0401$20.00 terning within the group. In several respects trilobite development and form appears comparable with that which may have charac- terized the ancestor of most or all euarthropods, giving studies of trilobite body organization special relevance in the light of recent advances in the understanding of arthropod evolution and devel- opment. The Cambrian diversification of trilobites displayed mod- Annu. Rev. Earth Planet. Sci. 2007.35:401-434. Downloaded from arjournals.annualreviews.org ifications in the patterning of the trunk region comparable with by UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - RIVERSIDE LIBRARY on 05/02/07. For personal use only. those seen among the closest relatives of Trilobita. In contrast, the Ordovician diversification of trilobites, although contributing greatly to the overall diversity within the clade, did so within a nar- rower range of trunk conditions.
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The Snodgrass Tapes Evolution of the Arthropods Robert Evans Snodgrass Page 1 Figure 1
The Snodgrass Tapes Evolution of the Arthropods The third of three lectures by the insect morphologist Robert Evans Snodgrass delivered to the Department of Entomology at the University of Maryland in 1960. Transcribed, assembled and annotated by Jeffrey W. Shultz Robert Evans Snodgrass Well, the subject today will be the evolution of the arthropods. But, of course, I'll have to admit to begin with that I don't really know the truth of the matter. So, judging from what facts you can get to together... I suppose at the present time that all .... evolution is accepted as a fact by all zoologists. And apparently the fundamentalists have given up trying to do anything about it. Yet it is a theory. And ... But it seems the idea of natural selection well- enough accounts for the physical evolution of animals; that is, certain genes produce the proper variations. But what bothers me about the ... about the evolution of the animals is how did the animal ever become such a com- plex assemblage of chemical substances. I've had a cold, but I guess I can talk through it. Every cell in the body, for example, has to have its own enzymes to do its work it's supposed to do. And all these activities have to be correlated and regulated by hormones, and hormones, again, are just chemical compounds. And, so, it seems to me that that's one of the problems of evolution yet is to find out how all of these chemical substances ever got together in the animal in the proper amount, in the proper places and [how they came] to do the things that they do do...
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Aysheaia Prolata from the Utah Wheeler Formation (Drumian, Cambrian) Is a Frontal Appendage of the Radiodontan Stanleycaris
Aysheaia prolata from the Utah Wheeler Formation (Drumian, Cambrian) is a frontal appendage of the radiodontan Stanleycaris STEPHEN PATES, ALLISON C. DALEY, and JAVIER ORTEGA-HERNÁNDEZ Pates, S., Daley, A.C., and J. Ortega-Hernández, J. 2017. Aysheaia prolata from the Utah Wheeler Formation (Drumian, Cambrian) is a frontal appendage of the radiodontan Stanleycaris. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 62 (3): 619–625. Aysheaia prolata, was described as the only lobopodian from the Drumian (Cambrian) Wheeler Formation in Utah, USA, and the sole representative of this genus besides the type species Aysheaia pedunculata, from the Cambrian (Stage 5) Stephen Formation, British Columbia. A redescription of Aysheaia prolata reveals previously overlooked morphological features, including segmental boundaries between putative lobopods, and curved terminal spines on the putative anterior end. These observations undermine lobopodian affinities of Aysheaia prolata, and instead we interpret this specimen as an isolated radiodontan frontal appendage. The presence of 11 podomeres, five of which possess elongate and anteri- orly recurved ventral blades with auxiliary spines, together with shorter robust dorsal spines, identify the specimen as Stanleycaris. This represents the first report of Stanelycaris outside of the Cambrian Stage 5 thin Stephen Formation in British Columbia, expanding its palaeobiogeographic and stratigraphic range. Aysheaia is left as a monotypic genus endemic to the Burgess Shale. The Spence Shale luolishaniid Acinocrinus stichus is currently the only lobopodian known from the Cambrian of Utah. Key words: Euarthropoda, Radiodonta, Hurdiidae, Cambrian, United States. Stephen Pates [[email protected]], Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX1 3PS, UK. Allison C. Daley [[email protected]], Institute of Earth Sciences, University of Lausanne, Géopolis, CH-1015, Lausanne, Switzerland.
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An Appraisal of the Great Basin Middle Cambrian Trilobites Described Before 1900
An Appraisal of the Great Basin Middle Cambrian Trilobites Described Before 1900 By ALLISON R. PALMER A SHORTER CONTRIBUTION TO GENERAL GEOLOGY GEOLOGICAL SURVEY PROFESSIONAL PAPER 264-D Of the 2ty species described prior to I(?OO, 2/ are redescribed and 2C} refigured, and a new name is proposedfor I species UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE, WASHINGTON : 1954 UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR Douglas McKay, Secretary GEOLOGICAL SURVEY W. E. Wrather, Director For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U. S. Government Printing Office Washington 25, D. C. - Price $1 (paper cover) CONTENTS Page Abstract..__________________________________ 55 Introduction ________________________________ 55 Original and present taxonomic names of species. 57 Stratigraphic distribution of species ____________ 57 Collection localities._________________________ 58 Systematic descriptions.______________________ 59 Literature cited____________________________ 82 Index __-_-__-__---_--______________________ 85 ILLUSTRATIONS [Plates 13-17 follow page 86] PLATE 13. Agnostidae and Dolichometopidae 14. Dorypygidae 15. Oryctocephalidae, Dorypygidae, Zacanthoididae, and Ptychoparioidea 16. Ptychoparioidea 17. Ptychoparioidea FIGUBE 3. Index map showing collecting localities____________________________ . Page 56 in A SHORTER CONTRIBUTION TO GENERAL GEOLOGY AN APPRAISAL OF THE GREAT BASIN MIDDLE CAMBRIAN TRILOBITES DESCRIBED BEFORE 1900 By ALLISON R. PALMER ABSTRACT the species and changes in their generic assignments All 29 species of Middle Cambrian trilobites
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The Secrets of Fossils Lesson by Tucker Hirsch
The Secrets of Fossils Lesson by Tucker Hirsch Video Titles: Introduction: A New view of the Evolution of Animals Cambrian Explosion Jenny Clack, Paleontologist: The First Vertebrate Walks on Land Des Collins, Paleontologist: The Burgess Shale Activity Subject: Assessing evolutionary links NEXT GENERATION SCIENCE STANDARDS and evidence from comparative analysis of the fossil MS-LS4-1 Analyze and interpret data for patterns record and modern day organisms. in the fossil record that document the existence, diversity, extinction, and change of life forms Grade Level: 6 – 8 grades throughout the history of life on Earth under the Introduction assumptions that natural laws operate today as In this lesson students make connections between in the past. [Clarification Statement: Emphasis fossils and modern day organisms. Using the is on finding patterns of changes in the level of information about the Cambrian Explosion, they complexity of anatomical structures in organisms explore theories about how and why organisms diversified. Students hypothesize what evidence and the chronological order of fossil appearance might be helpful to connect fossil organisms to in the rock layers.] [Assessment Boundary: modern organisms to show evolutionary connections. Assessment does not include the names of Students use three videos from shapeoflife.org. individual species or geological eras in the fossil record.] Assessments Written MS-LS4-2 Apply scientific ideas to construct an Time 100-120 minutes (2 class periods) explanation for the anatomical similarities and Group Size Varies; single student, student pairs, differences among modern organisms and between entire class modern and fossil organisms to infer evolutionary relationships. [Clarification Statement: Emphasis Materials and Preparation is on explanations of the evolutionary relationships • Access to the Internet to watch 4 Shape of Life videos among organisms in terms of similarity or • Video Worksheet differences of the gross appearance of anatomical • “Ancient-Modern” Activity.
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An Inventory of Trilobites from National Park Service Areas
Sullivan, R.M. and Lucas, S.G., eds., 2016, Fossil Record 5. New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin 74. 179 AN INVENTORY OF TRILOBITES FROM NATIONAL PARK SERVICE AREAS MEGAN R. NORR¹, VINCENT L. SANTUCCI1 and JUSTIN S. TWEET2 1National Park Service. 1201 Eye Street NW, Washington, D.C. 20005; -email: [email protected]; 2Tweet Paleo-Consulting. 9149 79th St. S. Cottage Grove. MN 55016; Abstract—Trilobites represent an extinct group of Paleozoic marine invertebrate fossils that have great scientific interest and public appeal. Trilobites exhibit wide taxonomic diversity and are contained within nine orders of the Class Trilobita. A wealth of scientific literature exists regarding trilobites, their morphology, biostratigraphy, indicators of paleoenvironments, behavior, and other research themes. An inventory of National Park Service areas reveals that fossilized remains of trilobites are documented from within at least 33 NPS units, including Death Valley National Park, Grand Canyon National Park, Yellowstone National Park, and Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve. More than 120 trilobite hototype specimens are known from National Park Service areas. INTRODUCTION Of the 262 National Park Service areas identified with paleontological resources, 33 of those units have documented trilobite fossils (Fig. 1). More than 120 holotype specimens of trilobites have been found within National Park Service (NPS) units. Once thriving during the Paleozoic Era (between ~520 and 250 million years ago) and becoming extinct at the end of the Permian Period, trilobites were prone to fossilization due to their hard exoskeletons and the sedimentary marine environments they inhabited. While parks such as Death Valley National Park and Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve have reported a great abundance of fossilized trilobites, many other national parks also contain a diverse trilobite fauna.
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Posterior Border
Palaeontology Practical 8 Phylum Arthropoda – Class Trilobata Arthropods • Chitinous exoskeleton • Bilaterally symmetrical • Articulated segmented bodies that are partitioned in three • Paired jointed appendages for movement and feeding • Periodic moulting (ecdysis) • Antennae and/or multiple eyes • 75% of all living animal species • Includes insects, crustaceans, spiders, extinct trilobites and eurypterids • Coelomates, possibly related to annelids • Developed nervous and circulatory systems • Advanced feeding, many have jaw structures • The most successful invertebrate group • Advanced in terms of feeding and locomotion • Able to invade different environments and modes of life • Thus, marine and terrestrial • Good geological record (hard exoskeleton) from the Lower Cambrian Trilobites • Trilobites are the oldest group of arthropods. • They first appear in rocks of Lower Cambrian and died out in the Late Permian. • They were marine, mainly benthic and had • extremely variable morphologies and lifestyles. • They have a distinctive tri lobed • morphology (hence their name) • Over 1500 genera are known and several thousand species • Usually small, between 5-8 cm but some forms could get up to 70 cm General morphology • Segmented bodies with chitinous exoskeletons and joined, paired limbs • The body is divided longitudinally into three regions: 1. The cephalon 2. The thorax 3. The pygidium • The exoskeleton covers both the dorsal and ventral side of the body • Consists of a two-layered cuticle of chitin • Usually it is hardened by the impregnation of calcium carbonate The cephalon • the head which consists of a single plate, made up of several fused segments. • sense organs are found on the head • there are also certain lines of weakness, known as cephalic sutures, which look like cracks on the surface but apparently facilitated ecdysis • They are important for taxonomic determinations • shape pentagonal to semicircular with transverse posterior edges.
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An Ordovician Lobopodian from the Soom Shale Lagerstätte, South Africa
[Palaeontology, Vol. 52, Part 3, 2009, pp. 561–567] AN ORDOVICIAN LOBOPODIAN FROM THE SOOM SHALE LAGERSTA¨ TTE, SOUTH AFRICA by ROWAN J. WHITTLE*,à, SARAH E. GABBOTT*, RICHARD J. ALDRIDGE* and JOHANNES THERON *Department of Geology, University of Leicester, Leicester LE1 7RH, UK; e-mails: [email protected]; [email protected] Department of Geology, University of Stellenbosch, Private Bag XI, Stellenbosch 7602, South Africa; e-mail: [email protected] àPresent address: British Antarctic Survey, Madingley Road, Cambridge, CB3 0ET, UK; e-mail: [email protected] Typescript received 18 July 2008; accepted in revised form 27 January 2009 Abstract: The ﬁrst lobopodian known from the Ordovician and Carboniferous. The new fossil preserves an annulated is described from the Soom Shale Lagersta¨tte, South Africa. trunk, lobopods with clear annulations, and curved claws. It The organism shows features homologous to Palaeozoic mar- represents a rare record of a benthic organism from the ine lobopodians described from the Middle Cambrian Bur- Soom Shale, and demonstrates intermittent water oxygena- gess Shale, the Lower Cambrian Chengjiang biota, the Lower tion during the deposition of the unit. Cambrian Sirius Passet Lagersta¨tte and the Lower Cambrian of the Baltic. The discovery provides a link between marine Key words: Lagersta¨tte, lobopodian, Ordovician, Soom Cambrian lobopodians and younger forms from the Silurian Shale. Cambrian lobopodians are a diverse group showing a in an intracratonic basin with water depths of approxi- great variety of body shape, size and ornamentation. mately 100 m (Gabbott 1999). Dominantly quiet water However, they share a segmented onychophoran-like conditions are indicated by a lack of ﬂow-induced sedi- body, paired soft-skinned annulated lobopods, and in mentary structures and the taphonomy of the fossils.
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Hallucigenia's Onychophoran-Like Claws
LETTER doi:10.1038/nature13576 Hallucigenia’s onychophoran-like claws and the case for Tactopoda Martin R. Smith1 & Javier Ortega-Herna´ndez1 The Palaeozoic form-taxon Lobopodia encompasses a diverse range of Onychophorans lack armature sclerites, but possess two types of ap- soft-bodied‘leggedworms’ known from exceptionalfossil deposits1–9. pendicular sclerite: paired terminal claws in the walking legs, and den- Although lobopodians occupy a deep phylogenetic position within ticulate jaws within the mouth cavity9,23.AsinH. sparsa, claws in E. Panarthropoda, a shortage of derived characters obscures their evo- kanangrensis exhibit a broad base that narrows to a smooth conical point lutionary relationships with extant phyla (Onychophora, Tardigrada (Fig. 1e–h). Each terminal clawsubtends anangle of130u and comprises and Euarthropoda)2,3,5,10–15. Here we describe a complex feature in two to three constituent elements (Fig. 1e–h). Each smaller element pre- the terminal claws of the mid-Cambrian lobopodian Hallucigenia cisely fills the basal fossa of its container, from which it can be extracted sparsa—their construction from a stack of constituent elements— with careful manipulation (Fig. 1e, g, h and Extended Data Fig. 3a–g). and demonstrate that equivalent elements make up the jaws and claws Each constituent element has a similar morphology and surface orna- of extant Onychophora. A cladistic analysis, informed by develop- ment (Extended Data Fig. 3a–d), even in an abnormal claw where mental data on panarthropod head segmentation, indicates that the element tips are flat instead of pointed (Extended Data Fig. 3h). The stacked sclerite components in these two taxa are homologous— proximal bases of the innermost constituent elements are associated with resolving hallucigeniid lobopodians as stem-group onychophorans.
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