Re: Cambrian Explosion

mortongr@flash.net
Mon, 05 Jul 1999 21:51:17 +0000

Hi Art,

At 12:13 PM 7/5/99 -0700, Arthur V. Chadwick wrote:
>Susan Brassfield wrote:

>>That's not exactly true. Perhaps you overlooked this:
>>
>>"Our own phylum (which we share with other mammals, reptiles,
>>birds, amphibians and fish) was represented by a small, sliver-like thing
>>called Pikaia. Plants were not yet present. Photosynthetic protists and
algae
>>were the bottom of the food chain."
>>
>>Aren't plants a new "body plan"? Rather radically different from algae.

>Some quotations from an article in Time magazine (When life exploded, TIME,
>12/5/95 http://ucaswww.mcm.uc.edu/geology/huff/When_Life_Exploded.html) on
>the origin of the Precambrian metazoa are instructive : The article pointed
>out that all animal
>phyla except perhaps bryozoa are present in early Cambrian, and that they
>all appear
>within a very small slice of time ("no more than 10 million years")

Isn't Time a rather loose source in this instance? While all my books are
in storage, I believe that the following phyla do not appear until after
the Cambrian. I agree with Susan, plants are new body plans. There is also
the cycliophora which was found on lobster lips this decade and is a new
animal phyla.(Petar Funch and Reinhardt Mobjerg Kristensen, "Cycliophora is
a new phylum with affinities to Entoprocta and Ectoprocta," Nature, 378,
Dec. 14, 1995, p. 711). Why did God create the animals in almost one fell
swoop but then dribble out the plants? This would imply that change can
occur, contrary to some of your quotes.

Phylum Earliest Appearance
in Fossil Record
---------------------------------------------
Dinoflagellates Triassic
Calcareous nanoplankton Triassic
Diatoms Cretaceous
Bryophytes Late Paleozoic
Psilophytes Middle Paleozoic
Lycopods Silurian
Sphenopsids Devonian
Ferns Devonian
Cycadeoids Middle Paleozoic
Ginkgos Early Mesozoic
Conifers Late Paleozoic
Angiosperms Early Cretaceous

animals
Bryozoa Ordovician
cycliophora Recent
glenn

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