Abstract

Preservation of neural tissue in early Cambrian arthropods has recently been demonstrated to a degree that segmental structures of the head can be associated with individual brain neuromeres. This association provides novel data for addressing long-standing controversies about the segmental identities of specialized head appendages in fossil taxa. Here we document neuroanatomy in the head and trunk of a ‘great appendage’ arthropod, Alalcomenaeus sp., from the Chengjiang biota, southwest China, providing the most complete neuroanatomical profile known from a Cambrian animal. Micro-computed tomography reveals a configuration of one optic neuropil separate from a protocerebrum contiguous with four head ganglia, succeeded by eight contiguous ganglia in an eleven-segment trunk. Arrangements of optic neuropils, the brain and ganglia correspond most closely to the nervous system of Chelicerata of all extant arthropods, supporting the assignment of ‘great appendage’ arthropods to the chelicerate total group. The position of the deutocerebral neuromere aligns with the insertion of the great appendage, indicating its deutocerebral innervation and corroborating a homology between the ‘great appendage’ and chelicera indicated by morphological similarities. Alalcomenaeus and Fuxianhuia protensa1 demonstrate that the two main configurations of the brain observed in modern arthropods, those of Chelicerata and Mandibulata, respectively, had evolved by the early Cambrian.