Schinderhannes bartelsi
Encyclopedia
Schinderhannes bartelsi is an anomalocarid
known from one specimen from the lower Devonian Hunsrück Slate
s. Its discovery was astonishing because previously, anomalocaridids had only been known from exceptionally preserved fossil beds (Lagerstätte
n) from the Cambrian, 100 million years earlier.
Anomalocaridids are organisms such as Anomalocaris
, thought to be distantly related to the arthropods, which look quite unlike any organism living today—they had a segmented exoskeleton
with lateral lobes used for swimming, large compound eyes, and most strikingly a pair of large, claw-like great appendage
s resembling the tails of shrimp, which are thought to have passed food to a mouth resembling a pineapple ring.
, and is named after the outlaw Schinderhannes
who frequented the area. Its specific epithet bartelsi honours Christoph Bartels, a Hunsrück Slate expert. The specimen is now housed in the Naturhistorisches Museum, Mainz.
), a radial Peytoia 'pineapple-ring' mouth, and large, stalked, compound eyes. It has 12 body segments; large flap-like structures used for swimming protrude from the 11th segment, and from just behind the head.
s' are not a natural grouping.
The organism's discovery was most significant because of the huge range extension of the anomalocaridids it caused: the group was only previously known from lagerstatte of the lower-to-middle Cambrian, 100 million years before. This underlined the utility of lagerstatte
like the Hunsrück slate
: these exceptionally preserved fossil horizons may be the only available opportunity to observe non-mineralised forms.
Anomalocarid
AnomalocarididsNeolatin compound word from Greek ἀνώμαλος anomalos and καρίς karis , meaning "strange shrimp". Note that while "Anomalocarid" is a widely used alternative spelling, the double "id" at the end is technically the correct form, for the reasons given in...
known from one specimen from the lower Devonian Hunsrück Slate
Hunsrück Slate
The Hunsrück Slate is a Lower Devonian lithostratigraphic unit, a type of rock strata, in the German regions of the Hunsrück and Taunus. It is a lagerstätte famous for exceptional preservation of a highly diverse fossil fauna assemblage.-Geology:...
s. Its discovery was astonishing because previously, anomalocaridids had only been known from exceptionally preserved fossil beds (Lagerstätte
Lagerstätte
A Lagerstätte is a sedimentary deposit that exhibits extraordinary fossil richness or completeness.Palaeontologists distinguish two kinds....
n) from the Cambrian, 100 million years earlier.
Anomalocaridids are organisms such as Anomalocaris
Anomalocaris
Anomalocaris is an extinct genus of anomalocaridid, which are, in turn, thought to be closely related to the arthropods. The first fossils of Anomalocaris were discovered in the Ogygopsis Shale by Joseph Frederick Whiteaves, with more examples found by Charles Doolittle Walcott in the famed...
, thought to be distantly related to the arthropods, which look quite unlike any organism living today—they had a segmented exoskeleton
Exoskeleton
An exoskeleton is the external skeleton that supports and protects an animal's body, in contrast to the internal skeleton of, for example, a human. In popular usage, some of the larger kinds of exoskeletons are known as "shells". Examples of exoskeleton animals include insects such as grasshoppers...
with lateral lobes used for swimming, large compound eyes, and most strikingly a pair of large, claw-like great appendage
Great appendage
Great appendages are large claw-like appendages which attach to the heads of the "great appendage arthropods", a group whose monophyly is debated, but which includes the anomalocaridids...
s resembling the tails of shrimp, which are thought to have passed food to a mouth resembling a pineapple ring.
Discovery
The single specimen was discovered in the Eschenbach-Bocksberg Quarry in BundenbachBundenbach
Bundenbach is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Birkenfeld district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany...
, and is named after the outlaw Schinderhannes
Schinderhannes
Johannes Bückler , nicknamed Schinderhannes, was a German outlaw who orchestrated one of the most fascinating crime sprees in German history. He was born at Miehlen, the son of Johann and Anna Maria Bückler. He began an apprenticeship to a tanner, but turned to petty theft. At 16 he was arrested...
who frequented the area. Its specific epithet bartelsi honours Christoph Bartels, a Hunsrück Slate expert. The specimen is now housed in the Naturhistorisches Museum, Mainz.
Morphology
Schinderhannes is about 10 centimetres (3.9 in) long; like other anomalocaridids, it bears a pair of great appendages (very similar to those of HurdiaHurdia
Hurdia victoria is an extinct species of anomalocaridid that lived 500 million years ago during the Cambrian era. It is part of the ancestral lineage that led to Arthropods and is related to Anomalocaris.-Description:...
), a radial Peytoia 'pineapple-ring' mouth, and large, stalked, compound eyes. It has 12 body segments; large flap-like structures used for swimming protrude from the 11th segment, and from just behind the head.
Ecology
Its preserved guts are typical of predators, and this lifestyle is supported by the raptorial nature of the spiny great appendages and the size of the eyes. The organism clearly swam, propelling itself with the 'flippers' attached to its head, and using its wing-like lobes on the 11th segment to steer. These lobes presumably derived from the lateral lobes of Cambrian anomalocaridids, ancestors that used lobes along their sides to swim, and lacked the specialisations of Schinderhannes.Significance
The organism allows the classification of early arthropods to be resolved, to some degree. The organism is classified basally to the true arthropods, but is closer to that group than Anomalocaris. By analogy, Schinderhannes could be thought of as an 'aunt' to the arthropods, and Anomalocaris a 'great-aunt'. This suggests that the anomalocaridid group is in fact paraphyletic—that is, that the arthropods are descended from anomalocaridids. It also seems to suggest that the biramous limb of arthropods arose through fusion of anomalocaridid lateral lobes and gills. The fossil has other implications—it shows that the group of early arthropods with short 'great appendageGreat appendage
Great appendages are large claw-like appendages which attach to the heads of the "great appendage arthropods", a group whose monophyly is debated, but which includes the anomalocaridids...
s' are not a natural grouping.
The organism's discovery was most significant because of the huge range extension of the anomalocaridids it caused: the group was only previously known from lagerstatte of the lower-to-middle Cambrian, 100 million years before. This underlined the utility of lagerstatte
Lagerstätte
A Lagerstätte is a sedimentary deposit that exhibits extraordinary fossil richness or completeness.Palaeontologists distinguish two kinds....
like the Hunsrück slate
Hunsrück Slate
The Hunsrück Slate is a Lower Devonian lithostratigraphic unit, a type of rock strata, in the German regions of the Hunsrück and Taunus. It is a lagerstätte famous for exceptional preservation of a highly diverse fossil fauna assemblage.-Geology:...
: these exceptionally preserved fossil horizons may be the only available opportunity to observe non-mineralised forms.
External links
- Origin of claws seen in 390-million-year-old fossil
- Panda's Thumb: Schinderhannes bartelsi
- ScienceBlogs: Schinderhannes bartelsi, by PZ Myers showing a cladogramCladogramA cladogram is a diagram used in cladistics which shows ancestral relations between organisms, to represent the evolutionary tree of life. Although traditionally such cladograms were generated largely on the basis of morphological characters, DNA and RNA sequencing data and computational...
as proposed by G. Kühl et al., placing Schinderhannes (but not Anomalocaris) into the group of Euarthropoda.