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Science 6 February 1998:
Vol. 279. no. 5352, pp. 879 - 882
DOI: 10.1126/science.279.5352.879
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Reports

Precambrian Sponges with Cellular Structures

Chia-Wei Li, * Jun-Yuan Chen, * Tzu-En Hua

Sponge remains have been identified in the Early Vendian Doushantuo phosphate deposit in central Guizhou (South China), which has an age of ~580 million years ago. Their skeletons consist of siliceous, monaxonal spicules. All are referred to as the Porifera, class Demospongiae. Preserved soft tissues include the epidermis, porocytes, amoebocytes, sclerocytes, and spongocoel. Among thousands of metazoan embryos is a parenchymella-type of sponge larvae having a shoe-shaped morphology and dense peripheral flagella. The presence of possible amphiblastula larva suggests that the calcareous sponges may have an extended history in the Late Precambrian. The fauna indicates that animals lived 40 to 50 million years before the Cambrian Explosion.

C.-W. Li and T.-E. Hua, Department of Life Science, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan, China.
J.-Y. Chen, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Academia Sinica, Nanjing, China.
*   To whom correspondence should be addressed.

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