Re: Nematode fossils 15 million years older than the Cambrian explosion?

On 11/19/24 8:28 PM, John Harshman wrote:

On 11/19/24 6:38 PM, RonO wrote:

https://www.science.org/content/article/mother-son-team-s-fossil-find-shows-how-nematodes-and-all-arthropods-arose
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It looks like they have found nematode fossils in the same area that they are finding ediacaran fossils.  They think the fossils are in sediments 15 million years older than the Cambrian explosion diversification.
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They think that they represent early members of ecdysozoans.  Nematodes are protostomes, but are more closely related to arthropods than other protostomes.  This would mean that animals like the phylum mollusca existed or at least branched off as multicellular animals long before their appearance and diversification during the Cambrian explosion.

 First, of course they aren't nematodes, and the article actually suggests they're "nematode-like", i.e. stem-ecdysozoans.
 Second, Kimberella is probably either a mollusk or a stem-lophotrochozoan, so no ecdysozoan fossils are needed for that.
 

Do you have access to Current Biology?  I have access to Science itself, and it's too bad this didn't get published there.