Pauline avibella is a fossil ostracod from the Silurian with unusually well preserved soft parts, including limbs, eyes, gills and alimentary system.[1]

Pauline avibella
Temporal range: Wenlock
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Ostracoda
Order: Myodocopida
Family: Cylindroleberididae
Genus: Pauline
Species:
P. avibella
Binomial name
Pauline avibella
Siveter, Briggs, Siveter, Sutton & Joomun, 2012

The tiny shelled arthropod was found in 425-million-year-old rocks in the Herefordshire Lagerstätte in England near the Welsh Border. The rocks at the site date to the Silurian period of geological time. At the time, southern Great Britain was a sea area on a small continent situated in warm, southerly subtropical latitudes. The marine animals living there were covered by a fall of volcanic ash that preserved them frozen in time.[2]

References

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  1. ^ David J. Siveter; Derek E. G. Briggs; Mark D. Sutton; Sarah C. Joomun (2013). "A Silurian myodocope with preserved soft-parts: cautioning the interpretation of the shell-based ostracod record". Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 280 (1752): 20122664. doi:10.1098/rspb.2012.2664. PMC 3574317. PMID 23235709.
  2. ^ Pauline avibella: tiny new species discovered
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