A natural history of the deep-sea aplacophoran Prochaetoderma yongei and its relationship to confamilials (Mollusca, Prochaetodermatidae)

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2009. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Elsevier B.V. for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Deep Sea Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography 56 (2009): 1856-1864, doi:10.1016/j.dsr2.2009.05.026.Previously published studies are woven together into a natural history of a deep-sea aplacophoran mollusc species, Prochaetoderma yongei Scheltema, 1985, and its confamilial species in the Prochaetodermatidae. This amphi-Atlantic species occurs in sometimes great numbers at upper bathyal depths, rivaling polychaetes in numerical dominance. It appears to be an opportunist, with wide geographic and depth distribution, rapid development from lecithotrophic larva to settlement and maturity, and omnivory. A short illustrated morphological description using characters useful for identifying all prochaetodermatid species should prove useful to nontaxonomists whose business is the deep-sea benthic fauna

A soft-bodied mollusc with radula from the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale

Author Posting. © Nature Publishing Group, 2006. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Nature Publishing Group for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Nature 442 (2006): 159-163, doi:10.1038/nature04894.Odontogriphus omalus was originally described as a problematic non-biomineralized lophophorate organism. Here we reinterpret Odontogriphus based on 189 new specimens including numerous exceptionally well-preserved individuals from the Burgess Shale collections of the Royal Ontario Museum. This additional material provides compelling evidence that the feeding apparatus in Odontogriphus is a radula of molluscan architecture comprising two primary bipartite tooth rows attached to a radular membrane and showing replacement by posterior addition. Further characters supporting molluscan affinity include a broad foot bordered by numerous ctenidia located in a mantle groove and a stiffened cuticular dorsum. Odontogriphus has a radula similar to Wiwaxia corrugata but lacks a scleritome. We interpret these animals to be members of an early stem-group mollusc lineage that likely originated in the Neoproterozoic Ediacaran Period, providing support for the retention of a biomat-based grazing community from the late Precambrian until at least the Middle Cambrian.Our research was in part supported by a Post-Doctoral Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada grant (to JBC-2005) and by a Swedish Research Council grant (to CS)