Article ID: CBB000831712

From Weird Wonders to Stem Lineages: The Second Reclassification of the Burgess Shale Fauna (2008)

unapi

The Burgess Shale, a set of fossil beds containing the exquisitely preserved remains of marine invertebrate organisms from shortly after the Cambrian explosion, was discovered in 1909, and first brought to widespread popular attention by Stephen Jay Gould in his 1989 bestseller Wonderful life: The Burgess Shale and the nature of history. Gould contrasted the initial interpretation of these fossils, in which they were `shoehorned' into modern groups, with the first major reexamination begun in the 1960s, when the creatures were perceived as `weird wonders', possessing unique body plans and unrelated to modern organisms. More recently, a third phase of Burgess Shale studies has arisen, which has not yet been historically examined. This third phase represents a revolutionary new understanding, brought about, I believe, by a change in taxonomic methodology that led to a new perception of the Burgess creatures, and a new way to comprehend their relationships with modern organisms. The adoption of cladistics, and its corollary, the stem group concept, has forged a new understanding of the Burgess Shale . . . but has it also changed the questions we are allowed to ask about evolution?

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Description On a recent reclassification effort.


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Authors & Contributors
Sepkoski, David Christopher
Dresow, Max
Jones, Elizabeth D.
Boucher, Sandy C.
Tamborini, Marco
Honenberger, Phillip
Concepts
Evolution
Paleontology
Fossils
Biology
Classification in biology
Cladistic analysis
Time Periods
20th century, late
19th century
20th century, early
21st century
Renaissance
Ancient
Places
United States
Germany
Greece
China
Great Britain
Vienna (Austria)
Institutions
Natural History Museum (London, England)
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris
American Museum of Natural History, New York
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