Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license.
Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat.
We can research this topic together.
You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Chinese. (October 2022) Click for important translation instructions.
View a machine-translated version of the Chinese article.
Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Misplaced Pages.
Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article.
You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Chinese Misplaced Pages article at ]; see its history for attribution.
You may also add the template {{Translated|zh|清江生物群}} to the talk page.
You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in French. (October 2022) Click for important translation instructions.
View a machine-translated version of the French article.
Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Misplaced Pages.
Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article.
You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing French Misplaced Pages article at ]; see its history for attribution.
You may also add the template {{Translated|fr|Site fossilifère de Qingjiang}} to the talk page.
The Qingjiang biota are a major discovery of fossilized remains dating from the early Cambrian period approximately 518 million years ago. The remains consist at least 20,000 individual specimens, and were discovered near the Danshui River in the Hubei province of China in 2019. The site is particularly notable due to both the large proportion of new taxa represented (approximately 53% of the specimens), and due to the large amount of soft-body tissue of the ancient specimens that was preserved, likely due to the organisms being rapidly covered in sediment prior to fossilization, that allowed for the detailed preservation of even fragile, soft-bodied creatures such as Tino Dragan and jellyfish. Shelly fossils found at the site include trilobites, radiodonts, lobopods, bradoriids, brachiopods, hyolithids, mollusks, chancelloriids, kinorhynchs, priapulids, and articulated sponge spicules.
Restoration of an unnamed Qingjiang medusa
The site is a Burgess Shale type preservation, and has been widely compared to the Burgess Shale in terms of the site's richness and significance. The discovery has been described as one of the most significant of its kind in the last 100 years. Initial publications regarding the site stated that 4,351 of the collected specimens had been examined, and 101 species had been identified, 53 of which were new to science.
Talks are reportedly underway with local government to protect the site to ensure the longevity of continued research on the deposited specimens.
"Qingjiangonema is a long filamentous form comprising hundreds of cells filled by equimorphic and equidimensional pyrite microcrystals with a light sulfur isotope composition. Multiple lines of evidence indicate Qingjiangonema was a sulfate-reducing bacterium that exhibits similar patterns of cell organization to filamentous forms within the phylum Desulfobacterota, including the sulfate-reducing Desulfonema and sulfide-oxidizing cable bacteria."
Chuaria is a spheroidal and thick-walled eukaryote that is typically regarded as having algal affinities based on cell walls and biogeochemical analyses. It appears to have existed from the late Paleoproterozoic (1670–1640 Ma) to the Qingjiang Formation (518 Ma). "Like many Precambrian microfossils (Simpson, 1944, Schopf, 1994, Dvořák et al., 2015), its extraordinarily slow rate of evolutionary change was probably due to the asexual reproduction and wide ecological tolerance. Accordingly, if Chuaria represented a homogeneous eukaryote, it would make sense that it retained a consistent morphology for an exceptionally long geological time. Such hypobradytelic organism can be seen in macro-organisms as well, e.g., Marchantites Brongniart, 1849 of bryophyte (Li et al., 2014), or Lampetra Bonnaterre, 1788 of chordate (Gess et al., 2006)."
Megaspirellus was originally identified as an alga but has been more recently tentatively re-interpreted as a cololite (fossilized intestinal casts of faecal material) and a junior synonym of Cilindrotomaculum.
A red alga. "Thalli comprise flat and ribbon‐shaped branches showing different branching patterns, some short branchlets, discoid or globose holdfasts and an unexpected occurrence of possible cystocarps (reproductive bodies)."
"Smooth cylindrical ribbons 0.19–2.2mm wide and up to 74.0 mm long. Ribbons are flexible and can be curved, looped or folded, but are not regularly coiled as in Megaspirellus or Grypania. No branching or holdfast structures are associated with the ribbons."
"Owing to the presence of definite hexactines and hexactine-derived spicules, Sanshapentella can be assigned to Hexactinellida... Sponge body is composed of a stout trunk (usually 10–35 mm in thickness) and four or five conical branches at the top."
"Limpet-formed shell, flattened, with elliptical aperture. Radial sculpture of numerous high and narrow primary and secondary ribs, intersecting the concentric growth lines as imbrications. A prominent fold on anterior flank of shell, extending from apical region toward the anterior edge of aperture."
"The generic composition of the Botsfordiidae was recently emended by Popov et al. (2015), who restricted the family to include only genera exhibiting a pitted larval shell, a finely pustulose postlarval shell and lacking well-developed muscle platforms as well as a prominent dorsal median ridge. The linguloid family Neobolidae was reintroduced, encompassing several early Cambrian lingulide genera that previously had been assigned to the Botsfordiidae, including Neobolus and Edreja (Holmer and Popov, 2000). "
The family Sunnellidae includes three genera: Combinivalvula, Sunella, and Jinningella. "Sunellids resemble Isoxys Walcott, 1890 to which they may be closely related; both possess a bivalved, elongated carapace with cardinal spines that almost entirely covers the body. However, neither cephalic appendages nor proximal portions of trunk limbs are visible in sunellids, and thus, their systematic position remains uncertain."
"The general morphology of Duplapex gen. nov. clearly indicates affinity with the Family Tuzoiidae, supported by the unmineralized bivalved carapace, reticulate ornamentation, small marginal spines and annulated eye stalks. However, its layered valves are distinguished from those of Tuzoia (the only genus found in the Family Tuzoiidae), and Duplapex has unique ventral notches and doublure spines. These justify the erection of a new genus within the Family Tuzoiidae."
I. minor appears to have produced many eggs (approximately 300 per clutch), and egg-bearing individuals were about half the size of adults, indicating r-selection in this species. This is currently the earliest diverging arthropod that displays brood behavior.
Wang, H.-Z.; Zhang, Z.-F.; Holmer, L. E.; Zhang, Z.-L. (2022). "Redescription and systematic position of Diandongia pista from the Chengjiang Lagerstätte". Palaeoworld. 32 (3): 373–384. doi:10.1016/j.palwor.2022.10.001. S2CID252945654.
