Doushantuo embryos preserved inside diapause egg cysts

Phosphatized microfossils in the Ediacaran (635-542 Myr ago) Doushantuo Formation, south China, have been interpreted as the embryos of early animals. Despite experimental demonstration that embryos can be preserved, microstructural evidence that the Doushantuo remains are embryonic and an unambiguo...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature 2007-04, Vol.446 (7136), p.661-663
Main Authors: Yin, Leiming, Zhu, Maoyan, Knoll, Andrew H, Yuan, Xunlai, Zhang, Junming, Hu, Jie
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Blastula - cytology
Cambrian
China
Earth sciences
Earth, ocean, space
Embryo, Nonmammalian - cytology
Embryo, Nonmammalian - embryology
Embryos
Eukaryotic Cells - cytology
Exact sciences and technology
Fossils
Gammaproteobacteria - cytology
Glaciation
History, Ancient
Humanities and Social Sciences
Hypothesis testing
Invertebrate paleontology
letter
Models, Biological
multidisciplinary
Ovum - cytology
Paleoecology
Paleontology
Reproducibility of Results
Rocks
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Thiomargarita
Time Factors
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Summary:Phosphatized microfossils in the Ediacaran (635-542 Myr ago) Doushantuo Formation, south China, have been interpreted as the embryos of early animals. Despite experimental demonstration that embryos can be preserved, microstructural evidence that the Doushantuo remains are embryonic and an unambiguous record of fossil embryos in Lower Cambrian rocks, questions about the phylogenetic relationships of these fossils remain. Most recently, some researchers have proposed that Doushantuo microfossils may be giant sulphur-oxidizing bacteria comparable to extant Thiomargarita sp. Here we report new observations that provide a test of the bacterial hypothesis. The discovery of embryo-like Doushantuo fossils inside large, highly ornamented organic vesicles (acritarchs) indicates that these organisms were eukaryotic, and most probably early cleavage stage embryos preserved within diapause egg cysts. Large acanthomorphic microfossils of the type observed to contain fossil embryos first appear in rocks just above a 632.5 ± 0.5-Myr-old ash bed, suggesting that at least stem-group animals inhabited shallow seas in the immediate aftermath of global Neoproterozoic glaciation.
ISSN:0028-0836
1476-4687
1476-4679
DOI:10.1038/nature05682