Kampecaris

Kampecaris is an extinct genus of diplopod, closely related to living millipedes, from the Silurian and early Devonian periods of Scotland and England,[1] which are among the oldest known land-dwelling animals.[2] They were small (20–30 millimetres (0.79–1.18 in) long), short-bodied animals with three recognizable sections: an oval head divided along the midline, ten limb-bearing segments forming a cylindrical trunk that tapered slightly towards the front, and a characteristic swollen tail formed by a modified segment that tapers at its rear into an "anal segment". The cuticle forming their exoskeletons was thick, heavily calcified, and composed of two layers.[3]

Kampecaris
Temporal range: Silurian–Devonian,
~425–410 Ma
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Diplopoda
Family: †Kampecaridae
Genus: †Kampecaris
Page, 1856
Type species
†Kampecaris forfarensis
Peach, 1882
Other species
  • †K. dinmorensis Clarke, 1951
  • †K. obanensis Peach, 1899

The genus was named by David Page in 1856 for a "small phyllopod, or the larval stage of some larger crustacean" from Silurian deposits of Angus, Scotland (formerly Forfarshire), but it was not until 1882 that Ben Peach recognized the affinities of this animal to millipedes and named the species K. forfarensis. Peach named another Silurian species, K. obanensis, from Old Red Sandstone deposits from the Scottish island of Kerrera in 1899; John Almond questioned the affinity of this species to Kampecaris in 1985, for several reasons including the presence of 14 segments behind the head. In 1951, B.B. Clarke described a Devonian species, K. dinmorensis, from Dinmore Hill, Herefordshire, England. Another Devonian species, K. tuberculata,[3] was subsequently recognized as being closer to flat-backed millipedes in the group Archipolypoda, and renamed to Palaeodesmus.[4]

References
  1. Brookfield, M.E.; Catlos, E.J.; Suarez, S.E. (2020). "Myriapod divergence times differ between molecular clock and fossil evidence: U/Pb zircon ages of the earliest fossil millipede-bearing sediments and their significance". Historical Biology: 1–5. doi:10.1080/08912963.2020.1762593.
  2. Dunham, W. (30 May 2020). "Millipede from Scotland is world's oldest-known land animal". Reuters. Retrieved 31 May 2020.
  3. Almond, J.E.; Lawson, J.D. (1985). "The Silurian-Devonian fossil record of the Myriapoda". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B — Biological Sciences. 309 (1138): 227–237. doi:10.1098/rstb.1985.0082.
  4. Wilson, H.M.; Anderson, L.I. (2004). "Morphology and taxonomy of paleozoic millipedes (Diplopoda: Chilognatha: Archipolypoda) from Scotland". Journal of Paleontology. 78 (1): 169–184. doi:10.1666/0022-3360(2004)078<0169:MATOPM>2.0.CO;2.
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