Paleozoic Life, Part 1: Evolution

of Marine Invertebrates

Geology 103, Earth Through Time

Life at the
end of the
Proterozoic
Cambrian trilobites cruising on Saturday night
Typical
Cambrian
trilobite
Typical
Cambrian
trilobite
Modern horseshoe
crabs look similar to
trilobites, but they
are not closely
related. Trilobites
are extinct.
A living Inarticulate
Brachiopod. Very
common in the
Cambrian.
Modern Lingula in their burrows
Cambrian Archaeocyathid in cross section
Diagram of an Archaeocyathid
The
Cambrian
Explosion
made the
cover of
TIME.
The Burgess Shale of British Columbia
Mt. Stephen in Yoho National Park, Canada
Geologists at the Burgess Shale quarry
Paleontologist collecting a slab of fossils
A trilobite with
preserved legs
and antennae
The strange
animals of the
Middle
Cambrian
Burgess
Shale
Opabinia and Amwiskia, representatives
of two extinct phyla
Opabinia
The first sea scorpion on the attack!
Marella, extinct class of arthropods
 Marella as
Cambrian road
kill (or a
squished bug?)
Yohoia, an extinct class of arthropods
A cousin of Yohoia from China
Lobopods eating “sponge cake”
Specimens of lobopods
Living and fossil lobopods
Hallucigenia, a spiny lobopod
Various Burgess Shale “worms”
A spiny “worm”
Anomalocaris, the
largest predator of
the Cambrian and
an extinct phylum.
 Pikaia

Anomalocaris in
hot pursuit of
Marella
Pikaia, an early chordate
Pikaia, a chordate from the Burgess Shale
Yunnanozoan, a chordate from the early
Cambrian of China
Primitive chordates: Sea Squirts. Adults have a pharynx
with gill slits. Larval forms are free-swimming and have
a notochord. Fish are thought to have evolved from the
larval form by precocious sexual maturation.
Chordate evolution
Branchiostoma, the lancelet
 Invertebrates after the Cambrian
Invertebrates after the Cambrian
Phylum Cnidaria: colonial corals (anthozoa)
Phylum Cnidaria: horn coral (anthozoa)
Skeleton of a modern coral
A living sea anemone, relative of corals
A living coral reef ecosystem
Phylum Bryozoa
Articulate Brachiopods
Mollusca
Mollusca: Class Bivalvia
Miocene marine bivalve, Maryland
Phylum Mollusca: Class Gastropoda
Nautilus, a
cephalopod
(Mollusca)
 A Paleozoic
Cephaplopod,
a goniatitic
ammonoid
 A Triassic
Cephaplopod,
a ceratitic
ammonoid
A Cretaceous
Cephaplopod,
an ammonitic
ammonoid
Another Cretaceous ammonite
Arthropods
An Ordovician Trilobite
A Silurian Trilobite
The Devonian
Trilobite
Phacops rana
The compound
eye of Phacops
A death assemblage of Phacops rana
Eurypterid or
“Sea
Scorpian”,
Silurian of
New York
A Tertiary crab
Echinodermata
Crinoid Blastoid
A Triassic crinoid
Endoxocrinus at a depth of 692 m, Bahamas
Slab of Mississippian crinoids – note the long
stems for feeding high above the substrate
Cystoid
Edrioasteroid
Asteroid
Ophiuroid
Starfish feeding on bivalves
Devonian starfish
Echinoids:
sand dollar (left)
sea biscuit (below)
Holothurian: sea cucumber