Predatorial Borings in Late Precambrian Mineralized Exoskeletons
Stefan Bengtson 1 and
Yue Zhao 2
1 Department of Geosciences (Palaeontology), Uppsala University, Box 558, S-751 22 Uppsala, Sweden
2 Institute of Geology, Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, Baiwanzhuang Road, Beijing, People's Republic of China
The late Precambrian tube-forming Cloudina, the earliest known animal to produce a mineralized exoskeleton, shows evidence of having been attacked by shell-boring organisms. Of more than 500 tubes from Shaanxi Province, China, 2.7% have rounded holes 40 to 400 micrometers in diameter. The relation between the size of the holes and the width of the bored tubes suggests that the attacking organism was a predator, selecting its prey for size. If true, this would be the oldest case of predation in the fossil record and would support the hypothesis that selection pressures from predation was a significant factor in the evolution of animal skeletons around the Precambrian-Cambrian boundary.
Submitted on March 12, 1992
Accepted on June 1, 1992
