@article {1114530, title = {Early Cambrian fuxianhuiids from China reveal origin of the gnathobasic protopodite in euarthropods}, journal = {Nature Communications}, volume = {9}, year = {2018}, pages = {470}, abstract = {Euarthropods owe their evolutionary and ecological success to the morphological plasticity of
their appendages. Although this variability is partly expressed in the specialization of the
protopodite for a feeding function in the post-deutocerebral limbs, the origin of the former
structure among Cambrian representatives remains uncertain. Here, we describe Alacaris
mirabilis gen. et sp. nov. from the early Cambrian Xiaoshiba Lagerst{\"a}tte in China, which
reveals the proximal organization of fuxianhuiid appendages in exceptional detail. Proximally,
the post-deutocerebral limbs possess an antero-posteriorly compressed protopodite with
robust spines. The protopodite is attached to an endopod with more than a dozen podomeres,
and an oval flap-shaped exopod. The gnathal edges of the protopodites form an axial
food groove along the ventral side of the body, indicating a predatory/scavenging autecology.
A cladistic analysis indicates that the fuxianhuiid protopodite represents the phylogenetically
earliest occurrence of substantial proximal differentiation within stem-group Euarthropoda
illuminating the origin of gnathobasic feeding.}, url = {https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-02754-z}, author = {Yang, J. and J. Ortega-Hern{\'a}ndez and Legg, D. A. and Lan, T. and J.-b. Hou and X.-g.Zhang} }