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Ancient Shrimp-Like Creature Has Oldest Known Circulatory System
sciencehabit (1205606) writes "A 520-million-year-old shrimp-like creature known as Fuxianhuia protensa has the oldest known cardiovascular system, researchers report. It was both modern and unsophisticated. A simple, tubelike heart was buried in the creature's belly — or thorax — and shot single blood vessels into the 20 or so segments of its primitive body. In contrast, x-ray scans of the specimen revealed profoundly intricate channels in the head and neck. The brain was well supplied with looping blood vessels, which extended branches into the arthropod's alienlike eyestalks and antennae and rivaled the complexity of today's crustaceans. From this Gordian architecture, the researchers can now speculate about the critter's lifestyle. Its brain required abundant oxygen, so it presumably did a fair amount of thinking."
...have been posted by nerval's lobster?
If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck it's hard to tell anything else.
This specimen is in any case quite interesting because it do show that the general body layout was already defined that long ago. It also brings up the question of what did exist before this creature.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
It also brings up the question of what did exist before this creature.
Prawn crackers
That's why it's called shrimplike. It's definitely no shrimp, it's not even a crustacea, it's an animal that was close to the common ancestor of insects, crustaceans and spiders.
No, they don't. Sponges, medusae and polyps don't have a cardiovascular system for instance.
Replying to myself: Most insects don't transport much of their oxygene via the blood anyway, they have tracheae, which basicly connect the inner parts of the body directly to the outside. The role of the blood in insects is more akin to that of the lymph in vertebrae.
Just 'cause most humans are a waste of valuable oxygen molecules doesn't mean that this animal was.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
'Its brain required abundant oxygen, so it presumably did a fair amount of thinking.'
humans brains require abundant oxygen but most do not do a fair amount of thinking...
For example, anthropomorphizing ancient sea critters.
The opposite of progress is congress
Actually, the oldest known horseshoe crab fossils are 70 million years younger than those of Fuxianhuia protensa. And 70 million years is a long time, even considering evolution. 70 million years ago from today, dinosaurs still ruled supreme on earth.
Also in this case did it taste like a shrimp?
And this is one reason we don't see gigantic insects, quite aside from the usual argument that the square-cube law would make their limbs too thin to support their weight. It also means they would have to evolve better oxygen transport mechanisms.
Who is John Cabal?
Now you've done it! Now we have to define "thinking". And thinking is required to define thinking. Or is it? Because I haven't defined thinking yet.
The Moore-Murphy Law: The number of things that will go wrong will double every 2 years.
We used to. Sixty-odd million years ago. There was more oxygen in the air then.
What an odd statement. Of course it's not going to be pondering the meaning of life or generating the guest list for an ambassadorial reception, but deciding whether the approaching snail is predator or prey is certainly thinking. So is deciding whether to move up or down in the water column to find a more comfortable temperature. It might not take a complex thought process, but it's still a thought process that comes to a conclusion.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Exactly, it is doing things more complicated than a normal reflex.
A lot of primitive animals work on reflex. Either move towards or away from light. When touched grasp. A primitive brain can process things like when dark wait a while to see if is not something like a predator overhead. Avoid objects in the way. Very simple type of reasoning.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.