Jamison-Todd Sarah, Witts James D, Jones Marc E H, Tangunan Deborah, Chandler Kim, Bown Paul, Twitchett Richard J
University College London, London, United Kingdom.
Natural History Museum, London, United Kingdom.
PLoS One. 2025 Apr 3;20(4):e0320945. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0320945. eCollection 2025.
The bone-eating worm Osedax is today a member of the highly adapted invertebrate assemblages associated with whale carcasses on the ocean floor. The worm has also been found in a variety of other vertebrates in marine environments. Osedax borings are represented by the trace fossil Osspecus, which has been identified in fossil whales and marine reptiles, with the earliest occurrence in the Albian. In studies of present-day whale bones it has been found that individual species of Osedax create distinct boring morphologies. The diversity of boring geometries therefore provides a proxy for species diversity that can be applied to the fossil record to better understand the diversity, ecology, and evolution of extinct Osedax species. We examined marine reptile fossils from the Upper Cretaceous Chalk Group of the United Kingdom, and found five previously undocumented boring morphologies. These results, coupled with a re-examination of previous records of Osspecus, led to the naming of seven new ichnospecies. Using nannofossil biostratigraphy from the chalk, we constrained the ages of these occurrences and found a high species diversity in the early Late Cretaceous, indicating either a rapid diversification or an earlier origin for Osedax than previously estimated. Furthermore, we recognise five Cretaceous ichnospecies that are also found in the Cenozoic, three of which are also found in present-day whale bones.
食骨蠕虫奥氏管虫如今是与海底鲸类尸体相关的高度适应的无脊椎动物群落的一员。这种蠕虫也在海洋环境中的多种其他脊椎动物身上被发现。奥氏管虫的钻孔以遗迹化石奥氏迹为代表，已在化石鲸类和海洋爬行动物中被识别出来，最早出现于阿尔比阶。在对现今鲸骨的研究中发现，奥氏管虫的各个物种会形成独特的钻孔形态。因此，钻孔几何形状的多样性为物种多样性提供了一个替代指标，可应用于化石记录，以更好地了解已灭绝的奥氏管虫物种的多样性、生态和进化。我们研究了来自英国上白垩统白垩组的海洋爬行动物化石，发现了五种以前未记录的钻孔形态。这些结果，再加上对奥氏迹先前记录的重新审视，促成了七个新遗迹种的命名。利用白垩中的超微化石生物地层学，我们确定了这些遗迹出现的年代，并发现在晚白垩世早期有很高的物种多样性，这表明奥氏管虫要么经历了快速分化，要么其起源比之前估计的更早。此外，我们识别出五个在新生代也有发现的白垩纪遗迹种，其中三个在现今的鲸骨中也有发现。
