Fossil of Fuxianhuia courtesy of Xiaoya Ma
Posted on 10/11/2012 4:22:26 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
Cockroaches and other insects belong to a group called the arthropods, which arose some 540 million years ago. A new Chinese fossil is yielding new insights into how the arthropod brain evolved and shows that within the first 20 million years of the group's emergence, the arthropod brain had already become surprisingly advanced. The new findings are based on a three-inch-long fossil arthropod known as Fuxianhuia protensa, found in what is now China's Yunnan Province and were described online October 10 in Nature (Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group)...
Fuxianhuia's body is understandably primitive, which is par for the prehistoric course, given that it lived some 290 million years before the dinosaurs emerged. But the brain architecture was a surprise. After examining the fossil under a dissecting microscope, the researchers found that this animal had three distinct, closely situated brain sections. It also has three optic neuropils, which are connected by nerve fibers. The well-preserved fossil even shows hints of linking fibers that connected these separate areas...
Fuxianhuia has typically been classified as an early arthropod that was probably close to the common ancestor of all other hard-bodied invertebrates -- of which there are more than 1.1 million described extant species. But the brain of this early creature bears a striking similarity to the brains of common bugs (the group that includes insects and arachnids) and malacostracans, (the group that includes crabs and lobsters), which have the three main brain sections and the connected optic neuropils. Another major group of arthropods, however, called the branchiopods (which includes brine shrimp and Daphnia water fleas) that emerged later, have much simpler brains with only two optic neuropils that are not connected like those in Fuxianhuia.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.scientificamerican.com ...
Fossil of Fuxianhuia courtesy of Xiaoya Ma
Finally, a scientific basis for liberals.
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| GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach | |
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Thanks Renfield. |
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Interesting story, but I can’t get passed the phrase “cockroach relative”.
forgot to ping ya.
Cockroaches are a very good example of natural selection. That they are as resistant as they are to extermination is testimony to the thousands of years that humans have tried to exterminate their antecedents. They are frighteningly brainy and fast. I’m sure they’re as smart as an Obama voter and could outrun a cheetah if they had its size. Their strong will to live is further evidenced by their tactics for survival: eating anything or eating nothing for long periods, freezing their motion when chased until they realize they’ve been seen, hiding, running, and, probably most importantly, breeding rapaciously.
Obama voter . . . breeding rapaciously
If a cockroach ate its own eggs, it could replace Sandra Fluke.
Think Debbie Wasserman-Shultz.
The only way she needs money for contraception is if she has a bag over her head, and lays all day with legs spread on a sidewalk covered with banana peels.
Odd how the first thought that came to my mind was a manager I once worked for......only his brain wasn't that complex/
Bingo!
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