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Updated: Oct 14, 2025

Ablation of a Single Cell From Eight-cell Embryos of the Amphipod Crustacean Parhyale hawaiensis
Published on: March 16, 2014
A 'hermit' shell-dwelling lifestyle in a Cambrian priapulan worm
Xiao-Yu Yang1, Martin R Smith2, Jie Yang1
1Yunnan Key Laboratory for Palaeobiology and MEC International Joint Laboratory for Palaeoenvironment, Yunnan University, Kunming 650091, China.
Abstract:
The Cambrian 'explosion', about 530 million years ago, marks a rapid diversification of the major animal lineages1. A concomitant increase in the complexity of ecosystems is believed to have accelerated this evolutionary radiation2, but direct evidence of the ecological modes of Cambrian taxa is nevertheless scarce - even in exceptional Burgess Shale-type deposits3. Here, we present new fossil material from the Cambrian (Stage 4) Guanshan biota in southern China that reveals the consistent occurrence of the priapulan worm ?Eximipriapulus4 within the conical shells of hyoliths. This represents the first direct evidence of a 'hermiting' life strategy - the adoption of a different organism's exoskeleton - in the priapulans and within the Palaeozoic era. It highlights the intense degree of convergent evolution during the Cambrian radiation. Hermiting behaviour has previously been linked with the escalation of predation pressure during the Mesozoic marine revolution5; such intensity of predation may also have characterised early Cambrian oceans.
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