Cretoperipatus burmiticus

• Myanmar

As Cretoperipatus burmiticus referred to an extinct species of velvet worms ( Onychophora ), which has been preserved in Cretaceous amber from Southeast Asia Myanmar. She is the only one from the Mesozoic ( Mesozoic ) known species of this animal group and may already be assigned to one of the two modern families, the Peripatidae.

Cretoperipatus burmiticus was first established in 2002 by paleontologist David. A. Grimaldi and Michael S. Engel described; the genus name is derived from the constituents Creto for the geological period of the Cretaceous and peripatus for the type genus of Peripatidae; the Artepithet burmiticus refers to the name of the Bernstein variety burmite in which the fossil was found.

Features

Only the front half of the animal is obtained, while the rear part is probably rotten. Five pairs of legs are visible, revealing an opposite fashionable styles unique foot structure.

The small bulges, the papillae, surrounded mouth where the jaw were, is like in today Stummelfüßern on the ventral side of the animal. The front portion of the head was distorted located at inclusion in amber and is inadequate to detect; But antennas and Mundpapillen were probably present.

The skin surface is covered by numerous wart-like elevations and finely ringed, with about twelve complete rings come in a segment that does not run into each other laterally. The distance between the second and third pair of legs is 0.69 mm, the distance between the third and fourth 0.77 millimeters.

On leg approach is an opening that Nephridiopore, which opens to that designated as Nephridiodukt execution channel, called excretory organs could be released into the environment by the products of nephridia in each case. Coxalorgane or Cruraldrüsen special organs that are present in many modern Stummelfüßern in the legs, can not account for itself. Form (basal) the leg is covered with five papillae, of which, however, two are only weakly developed. Are located towards the foot end three hardened cushion, of which the körperfernste ( distal ) is slightly smaller than the other two. In addition to the two long strong curved claws and a distal papilla is present. The entire length of the foot is 0.15 mm.

The gender of the only known individual is unknown.

Fund characteristics

Cretoperipatus burmiticus was found in a burmite -called Bernstein - variant near the hill Noije Bum, 32 kilometers southwest of the village of Tanai in Kachin State of Myanmar lies on his part.

The fossil was probably close to the transition from the lower to the upper Cretaceous period about 100 million years ago. At that time the region was between 10 and 15 latitude north latitude, so that Cretoperipatus burmiticus probably lived in tropical conditions. The amber was formed by curing the tree resin of coniferous plants ( Pinophyta ), probably from the family of the cypress family ( Cupressaceae ); perhaps it was even to close relatives of today's Urweltmammutbäume ( Metasequoia ).

The holotype of the species and at the same time the only known copy is kept in the American Natural History Museum.

Scientific classification

Is no serious doubt about the assignment of the fossil to the Stummelfüßern. The authors even assume that the type is already allocated to the modern family of Peripatidae. This would mean that the splitting of the Stummelfüßerlinie would have occurred in the two modern families more than 100 million years ago - a result that matches well with biogeographical considerations. On the other hand, can be Cretoperipatus burmiticus assign none of the modern genera.

Due to their placement in time of the type fills a gap between the first, clearly the Stummelfüßern associated type Helenodora inopinata from the geological period of the Carboniferous and two Tertiary species, Succinipatopsis balticus and Tertiapatus dominicanus, which are known from the Eocene or Miocene. Nevertheless, lie between Helenodora inopinata and Cretoperipatus burmiticus more than 200 million years of geological history, so that the stratigraphic range of the velvet worms is still patchy, the aforementioned four species form because even together already the entire known fossil record.