100-million-years-old “island-surfing”: SRµCT of Cretaceous genitals reveals the first fossils of the Gondwanan group Dalodesmidae

IF 8.9 1区地球科学 Q1 GEOSCIENCES, MULTIDISCIPLINARY

Gondwana Research Pub Date : 2026-10-27 DOI:10.1016/j.gr.2026.09.010

Jéhan Le Cadre, Dolev Fabrikant, Jörg U. Hammel, Jörg Spelda, Roland R. Melzer

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Lack of diagnostic characters in fossils is a widespread issue in palaeontology. Although Kachin amber (∼100 Ma) is yielding exceptional specimens, a major proportion of low preservation fossils are disregarded. In flat-backed millipedes (Polydesmida), this issue is critical as only two species are identified out of hundreds of reported fossils. With the popularisation of micro-tomography and synchrotron-based micro-tomography for palaeontology, it is important to assess their strengths in investigating difficult and low-preservation specimens. We report its success in capturing fully intact gonopods from two fossils of low preservation. Both specimens belong to the same new genus Dalocarinatus gen. nov., but represent two species: D. luxuriosus sp. nov. and D. inopinatus sp. nov. They are the oldest and definitive fossil representatives of the group Dalodesmidae, they also offer a glimpse of their presence on Burma Terrane, expanding their current-day geographical distribution, which is restricted to past Gondwanan regions.

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1亿年前的“岛屿冲浪”：白垩纪生殖器的SRµCT揭示了冈瓦纳族Dalodesmidae的第一批化石

化石缺乏诊断特征是古生物学中普遍存在的问题。虽然克钦琥珀（~ 100 Ma）产生了特殊的标本，但大部分低保存的化石被忽视了。在平背千足虫（Polydesmida）中，这个问题是至关重要的，因为在数百个报告的化石中只有两个物种被识别出来。随着微层析成像技术和基于同步加速器的微层析成像技术在古生物学研究中的普及，评估它们在研究难度大、保存率低的标本方面的优势显得尤为重要。我们报告它的成功捕获完整的性腺足动物从两个低保存的化石。这两个标本都属于同一个新属Dalocarinatus gen. nov.，但代表了两个物种：D. luxiosus sp. nov和D. inopinatus sp. nov.它们是Dalodesmidae组最古老和最确定的化石代表，它们也提供了它们在缅甸地区的存在，扩大了它们目前仅限于过去冈瓦南地区的地理分布。

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来源期刊

Gondwana Research 地学-地球科学综合

CiteScore

12.90

自引率

6.60%

发文量

298

审稿时长

65 days

期刊介绍： Gondwana Research (GR) is an International Journal aimed to promote high quality research publications on all topics related to solid Earth, particularly with reference to the origin and evolution of continents, continental assemblies and their resources. GR is an "all earth science" journal with no restrictions on geological time, terrane or theme and covers a wide spectrum of topics in geosciences such as geology, geomorphology, palaeontology, structure, petrology, geochemistry, stable isotopes, geochronology, economic geology, exploration geology, engineering geology, geophysics, and environmental geology among other themes, and provides an appropriate forum to integrate studies from different disciplines and different terrains. In addition to regular articles and thematic issues, the journal invites high profile state-of-the-art reviews on thrust area topics for its column, ''GR FOCUS''. Focus articles include short biographies and photographs of the authors. Short articles (within ten printed pages) for rapid publication reporting important discoveries or innovative models of global interest will be considered under the category ''GR LETTERS''.