Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History

by Stephen Jay Gould

  Durham, J. W. 1974. Systematic position of Eldonia ludwigi Walcott. Journal of Paleontology 48:750–55.

  Dzik, J., and K. Lendzion. 1988. The oldest arthropods of the East European platform. Lethaia 21:29–38.

  Erwin, D. H., J. W. Valentine, and J. J. Sepkoski. 1987. A comparative study of diversification events: The early Paleozoic versus the Mesozoic. Evolution 141:1177–86.

  Gagnier, P.-Y., A. R. M. Blieck, and G. Rodrigo. 1986. First Ordovician vertebrate from South America. Geobios 19:629–34.

  Glaessner, M. F. 1984. The dawn of animal life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

  Gould, S. J. 1977. Ever since Darwin. New York: W. W. Norton.

  Gould, S. J. 1981. The mismeasure of man. New York: W. W. Norton.

  Gould, S. J. 1985a. The paradox of the first tier: An agenda for paleobiology. Paleobiology 11:2–12.

  Gould, S. J. 1985b. Treasures in a taxonomic wastebasket. Natural History Magazine 94 (December):22–33.

  Gould, S. J. 1986. Evolution and the triumph of homology, or why history matters. American Scientist, January–February, pp. 60–69.

  Gould, S. J. 1987a. Life’s little joke. Natural History Magazine 96 (April): 16–25.

  Gould, S. J. 1987b. Bushes all the way down. Natural History Magazine 96 (June): 12–19.

  Gould, S. J. 1987c. William Jennings Bryan’s last campaign. Natural History Magazine 96 (November): 16–26.

  Gould, S. J. 1988. A web of tales. Natural History Magazine 97 (October): 16–23.

  Gould, S. J., N. L. Gilinsky, and R. Z. German. 1987. Asymmetry of lineages and the direction of evolutionary time. Science 236:1437–41.

  Gould, S. J., D. M. Raup, J. J. Sepkoski, T. J. M. Schopf, and D. S. Simberloff. 1977. The shape of evolution: A comparison of real and random clades. Paleobiology 3:23–40.

  Haeckel, E. 1866. Generelle Morphologie der Organismen. 2 vols. Berlin: Georg Reimer.

  Hanson, E. D. 1977. The origin and early evolution of animals. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press.

  Hopson, J. A. 1977. Relative brain size and behavior in archosaurian reptiles. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 8:429–48.

  Hou Xian-guang. 1987a. Two new arthropods from Lower Cambrian, Chengjiang, Eastern Yunnan [in Chinese]. Acta Palaeontologica Sinica 26:236–56.

  Hou Xian-guang. 1987b. Three new large arthropods from Lower Cambrian, Chengjiang, Eastern Yunnan [in Chinese). Acta Palaeontologica Sinica 26:272–85.

  Hou Xian-guang. 1987c. Early Cambrian large bivalved arthropods from Chengjiang, Eastern Yunnan [in Chinese]. Acta Palaeontologica Sinica 26:286–98.

  Hou Xian-guang and Sun Wei-guo. 1988. Discovery of Chengjiang fauna at Meishucun, Jinning, Yunnan [in Chinese]. Acta Palaeontologica Sinica 27:1–12.

  Hughes, C. P. 1975. Redescription of Burgessia bella from the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale, British Columbia. Fossils and Strata (Oslo) 4:415–35.

  Hutchinson, G. E. 1931. Restudy of some Burgess Shale fossils. Proceedings of the United States National Museum 78(11): 1–24.

  Jaanusson, V. 1981. Functional thresholds in evolutionary progress. Lethaia 14:251–60.

  Jablonski, D. 1986. Larval ecology and macroevolution in marine invertebrates. Bulletin of Marine Science 39:565–87.

  Jefferies, R. P. S. 1986. The ancestry of the vertebrates. London: British Museum (Natural History).

  Jerison, H. J. 1973. The evolution of the brain and intelligence. New York: Academic Press.

  King, Stephen. 1987. The tommyknockers. New York: Putnam.

  Kitchell, J. A., D. L. Clark, and A. M. Gombos, Jr. 1986. Biological selectivity of extinction: A link between background and mass extinction. Palaios 1:504–11.

  Knoll, A. H., and E. S. Barghoorn. 1977. Archean microfossils showing cell division from the Swaziland System of South Africa. Science 198:396–98.

  Lovejoy, A. O. 1936. The great chain of being. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

  Ludvigsen, R. 1986. Trilobite biostratigraphic models and the paleoenvironment of the Burgess Shale (Middle Cambrian), Yoho National Park, British Columbia. Canadian Paleontology and Biostratigraphy Seminars.

  Margulis, L. 1981. Symbiosis in cell evolution. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman.

  Margulis, L., and K. V. Schwartz. 1982. Five kingdoms. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman.

  Massa, W. R., Jr. 1984. Guide to the Charles D. Walcott Collection, 1851–1940. Guides to Collections, Archives and Special Collections of the Smithsonian Institution.

  Matthew, W. D., and W. Granger. 1917. The skeleton of Diatryma, a gigantic bird from the Lower Eocene of Wyoming. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 37:307–26.

  Mikulic, D. G., D. E. G. Briggs, and J. Kluessendorf. 1985a. A Silurian soft-bodied fauna. Science 228:715–17.

  Mikulic, D. G., D. E. G. Briggs, and J. Kluessendorf. 1985b. A new exceptionally preserved biota from the Lower Silurian of Wisconsin, USA. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London B 311:75–85.

  Morris, R. 1984. Time’s arrows. New York: Simon and Schuster.

  Müller, K. J. 1983. Crustacea with preserved soft parts from the Upper Cambrian of Sweden. Lethaia 16:93–109.

  Müller, K. J., and D. Walossek. 1984. Skaracaridae, a new order of Crustacea from the Upper Cambrian of Västergötland, Sweden. Fossils and Strata (Oslo) 17:1–65.

  Murchison, R. I. 1854. Siluria: The history of the oldest known rocks containing organic remains. London: John Murray.

  Parker, S. P. (ed.). 1982. McGraw-Hill, synopsis and classification of living organisms. 2 vols. New York: McGraw-Hill.

  Pflug, H. D. 1972. Systematik der jungpräkambrischen Petalonamae. Paläontologische Zeitschrift 46:56–67.

  Pflug, H. D. 1974. Feinstruktur und Ontogenie der jungpräkambrischen Petalo-Organismen. Paläontologische Zeitschrift 48:77–109.

  Raup, D. M., and S. J. Gould 1974. Stochastic simulation and evolution of morphology—towards a nomothetic paleontology. Systematic Zoology 23(3):305–22.

  Raup, D. M., S. J. Gould, T. J. M. Schopf, and D. S. Simberloff. 1973. Stochastic models of phylogeny and the evolution of diversity. Journal of Geology 81(5):525–42.

  Rigby, J. K. 1986. Sponges of the Burgess Shale (Middle Cambrian) British Columbia. Palaeontographica Canada, no. 2.

  Robison, R. A. 1985. Affinities of Aysheaia (Onychophora) with description of a new Cambrian species. Journal of Paleontology 59:226–35.

  Romer, A. S. 1966. Vertebrate paleontology. 3d ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

  Rozanov, A. Yu. 1986. Problematica of the Early Cambrian. In A. Hoffman and M. H. Nitecki (eds.), Problematic fossil taxa, pp. 87–96. New York: Oxford University Press.

  Runnegar, B. 1987. Rates and modes of evolution in the Mollusca. In K. S. W. Campbell and M. F. Day, Rates of evolution, pp. 39–60. London: Allen and Unwin.

  Schidlowski, M. 1988. A 3,800-million-year isotopic record of life from carbon in sedimentary rocks. Nature 333:313–18.

  Schopf, T. J. M. 1978. Fossilization potential of an intertidal fauna: Friday Harbor, Washington. Paleobiology 4:261–70.

  Schuchert, C. 1928. Charles Doolittle Walcott (1850–1927). Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 62:276–85.

  Seilacher, A. 1984. Late Precambrian Metazoa: Preservational or real extinctions? In H. D. Holland and A. F. Trendall (eds.), Patterns of change in earth evolution, pp. 159–68. Berlin: Springer-Verlag.

  Sepkoski, J. J., R. K. Bambach, D. M. Raup, and J. W. Valentine. 1981. Phanerozoic marine diversity and the fossil record. Nature 293:435.

  Simonetta, A. M. 1970. Studies of nontrilobite arthropods of the Burgess Shale (Middle Cambrian). Palaeontographica Italica 66 (n.s. 36):35–45.

  Simpson, G. G. 1980. Splendid isolation: The curious history of South American mammals. New Haven: Yale University Press.

  Størmer, L. 1959. Trilobitoidea. In R. C. Moore (ed.), Treatise on invertebrate paleontology, Part O. Arthropoda I, pp. 23–37.

  S
türmer, W., and J. Bergström. 1976. The arthropods Mimetaster and Vachonisia from the Devonian Hunsrück Shale. Paläontologische Zeitschrift 50:78–111.

  Stürmer, W. and J. Bergström. 1978. The arthropod Cheloniellon from the Devonian Hunsrück Shale. Paläontologische Zeitschrift 52:57–81.

  Sun Wei-guo and Hou Xian-guang. 1987a. Early Cambrian medusae from Chengjiang, Yunnan, China [in Chinese]. Acta Palaeontologica Sinica 26:257–70.

  Sun Wei-guo and Hou Xian-guang. 1987b. Early Cambrian worms from Chengjiang, Yunnan, China: Maotianshania Gen. Nov. [in Chinese]. Acta Palaeontologica Sinica 26: 299–305.

  Taft, W. H., et al. 1928. Charles Doolittle Walcott: Memorial meeting, January 24, 1928. Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections 80:1–37.

  Valentine, (James W. 1977. General patterns in Metazoan evolution. In A. Hallam (ed.), Patterns of evolution. New York: Elsevier Science Publishers.

  Vine, Barbara [Ruth Rendell]. 1987. A fatal inversion. New York: Bantam Books.

  Vonnegut, Kurt. 1985. Galápagos. New York: Delacorte Press.

  Walcott, C. D. 1891. The North American continent during Cambrian time. In Twelfth Annual Report, U.S. Geological Survey, pp. 523–68.

  Walcott, C. D. 1908. Mount Stephen rocks and fossils. Canadian Alpine Journal 1(2):232–48.

  Walcott, C. D. 1910. Abrupt appearance of the Cambrian fauna on the North American continent. Cambrian Geology and Paleontology, II. Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections 57:1–16.

  Walcott, C. D. 1911a. Middle Cambrian Merostomata. Cambrian Geology and Paleontology, II. Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections 57:17–40.

  Walcott, C. D. 1911b. Middle Cambrian holothurians and medusae. Cambrian Geology and Paleontology, II. Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections 57:41–68.

  Walcott, C. D. 1911c. Middle Cambrian annelids. Cambrian Geology and Paleontology, II. Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections 57:109–44.

  Walcott, C. D. 1912. Middle Cambrian Branchiopoda, Malacostraca, Trilobita and Merostomata. Cambrian Geology and Paleontology, II Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections 57:145–228.

  Walcott, C. D. 1916. Evidence of primitive life. Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution for 1915 [published in 1916], pp. 235–55.

  Walcott, C. D. 1918. Appendages of trilobites. Cambrian Geology and Paleontology, IV. Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections 67:115–216.

  Walcott, C. D. 1919. Middle Cambrian Algae. Cambrian Geology and Paleontology, IV. Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections 67:217–60.

  Walcott, C. D. 1920. Middle Cambrian Spongiae. Cambrian Geology and Paleontology, IV. Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections 67:261–364.

  Walcott, C. D. 1931. Addenda to description of Burgess Shale fossils, [with explanatory notes by Charles E. Resser]. Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections 85:1–46.

  Walcott, S. S. 1971. How I found my own fossil. Smithsonian l(12):28–29.

  Walter, M. R. 1983. Archean stromatolites: evidence of the earth’s earliest benthos. In J. W. Schopf (ed.), Earth’s earliest biosphere: Its origin and evolution, pp. 187–213. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

  White, C. 1799. An account of the regular gradation in man, and in different animals and vegetables. London: C. Dilly.

  Whittington, H. B. 1971. Redescription of Marrella splendens (Trilobitoidea) from the Burgess Shale, Middle Cambrian, British Columbia. Geological Survey of Canada Bulletin 209:1–24.

  Whittington, H. B. 1972. What is a trilobitoid? In Palaeontological Association Circular, Abstracts for Annual Meeting, p. 8. Oxford.

  Whittington, H. B. 1974. Yohoia Walcott and Plenocaris n. gen., arthropods from the Burgess Shale, Middle Cambrian, British Columbia. Geological Survey of Canada Bulletin 231:1–21.

  Whittington, H. B. 1975a. The enigmatic animal Opabinia regalis, Middle Cambrian, Burgess Shale, British Columbia. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London B 271:1–43.

  Whittington, H. B. 1975b. Trilobites with appendages from the Middle Cambrian, Burgess Shale, British Columbia. Fossils and Strata (Oslo) 4:97–136.

  Whittington, H. B. 1977. The Middle Cambrian trilobite Naraoia, Burgess Shale, British Columbia. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London B 280:409–43.

  Whittington, H. B. 1978. The lobopod animal Aysheaia pedunculata Walcott, Middle Cambrian, Burgess Shale, British Columbia. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London B 284:165–97.

  Whittington, H. B. 1980. The significance of the fauna of the Burgess Shale, Middle Cambrian, British Columbia. Proceedings of the Geologists’Association 91:127–48.

  Whittington, H. B. 1981a. Rare arthropods from the Burgess Shale, Middle Cambrian, British Columbia. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London B 292:329–57.

  Whittington, H. B. 1981b. Cambrian animals: Their ancestors and descendants. Proceedings of the Linnean Society (New South Wales) 105:79–87.

  Whittington, H. B. 1985a. Tegopelte gigas, a second soft-bodied trilobite from the Burgess Shale, Middle Cambrian, British Columbia. Journal of Paleontology 59:1251–74.

  Whittington, H. B. 1985b. The Burgess Shale. New Haven: Yale University Press.

  Whittington, H. B., and D. E. G. Briggs. 1985. The largest Cambrian animal, Anomalocaris, Burgess Shale, British Columbia. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London B 309:569–609.

  Whittington, H. B., and S. Conway Morris. 1985. Extraordinary fossil biotas: Their ecological and evolutionary significance. London: Royal Society. Published originally in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London B 311:1–192.

  Whittington, H. B., and W. R. Evitt II. 1953. Silicified Middle Ordovician trilobites. Geological Society of America Memoir 59.

  Zhang Wen-tang and Hou Xian-guang. 1985. Preliminary notes on the occurrence of the unusual trilobite Naraoia in Asia [in Chinese]. Acta Palaeontologica Sinica 24:591–95.

  Credits

  1.1 Copyright 1940 by Charles R. Knight. Reproduced by permission of Rhoda Knight Kalt.

  1.2 Copyright © Janice Lilien. Originally published in Natural History magazine, December 1985.

  1.3 From Charles White, An Account of the Regular Gradation in Man …, 1799. Reprinted from Natural History magazine.

  1.4 Reprinted by permission of Charles Scribner’s Sons, an imprint of Macmillan Publishing Company, from Henry Fairfield Osborn, Men of the Old Stone Age. Copyright 1915 by Charles Scribner’s Sons; copyright renewed 1943 by A. Perry Osborn.

  1.7 Reprinted courtesy of the Boston Globe.

  1.8 Reprinted courtesy of the Boston Globe.

  1.9 Reprinted courtesy of Bill Day, Detroit Free Press.

  1.11 Reprinted courtesy of Guinness Brewing Worldwide.

  1.12 Reprinted courtesy of Granada Group PLC.

  1.15 From James Valentine, “General Patterns in Metazoan Evolution,” in Patterns of Evolution, ed. A. Hallam. Elsevier Science Publishers (New York). Copyright © 1977.

  1.16(A) From David M. Raup and Steven M. Stanley, Principles of Paleontology, 2d ed. Copyright © 1971, 1978 W. H. Freeman and Company. Reprinted with permission.

  1.16(B) Figure 4.6 in Harold Levin, The Earth Through Time. Copyright © 1978 by Saunders College Publishing, a division of Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.

  1.16(C) From J. Marvin Weller, The Course of Evolution. McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc. Copyright © 1969.

  1.16(E) From Robert R. Shrock and William H. Twenhofel, Principles of Invertebrate Paleontology. McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc. Copyright © 1953.

  1.16(F) From Steven M. Stanley, Earth and Life Through Time, 2d ed. Copyright © 1986, 1989 W. H. Freeman and Company. Reprinted with permission.

  2.4, 2.5, 2.6 Smithsonian Institution Archives, Charles D. Walcott Papers, 1851–1940 and undated. Archive numbers SA-692, 89-6273, and 85-1592.

  3.1 By permission of the Smithsonian Institution Press, from Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, vol. 57, no. 6. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.

  3.3, 3.4,
3.5, 3.6, 3.7 From D. L. Bruton, 1981. The arthropod Sidneyia inexpectans, Middle Cambrian, Burgess Shale, British Columbia. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London B 295: 619–56.

  3.8 From H. B. Whittington, 1978. The lobopod animal Aysheaia pedunculata Walcott, Middle Cambrian, Burgess Shale, British Columbia. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London B 284:165–97.

  3.9, 3.10, 3.11 From D. L. Bruton, 1981. The arthropod Sidneyia inexpectans, Middle Cambrian, Burgess Shale, British Columbia. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London B 295: 619–56.

  3.13, 3.14, 3.15, 3.16 From H. B. Whittington, 1971. Redescription of Marrella splendens (Trilobitoidea) from the Burgess Shale, Middle Cambrian, British Columbia. Geological Survey of Canada Bulletin 209:1–24.

  3.17, 3.19 From H. B. Whittington, 1974. Yohoia Walcott and Plenocaris n. gen., arthropods from the Burgess Shale, Middle Cambrian, British Columbia. Geological Survey of Canada Bulletin 231:1–21.

  3.20 From H. B. Whittington, 1975. The enigmatic animal Opabinia regalis, Middle Cambrian, Burgess Shale, British Columbia. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London B 271:1–43.

  3.22 Reprinted by permission of Cambridge University Press.

  3.23 From A. M. Simonetta, 1970. Studies of non-trilobite arthropods of the Burgess Shale (Middle Cambrian). Palaeontographica Italica 66 (n.s. 36):35–45.

  3.24, 3.25, 3.26 From H. B. Whittington 1975. The enigmatic animal Opabinia regalis, Middle Cambrian, Burgess Shale, British Columbia. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London B 271:1–43.

  3.27 From C. P. Hughes, 1975. Redescription of Burgessia bella from the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale, British Columbia. Fossils and Strata (Oslo) 4:415–35. Reproduced with permission.

  3.30 From S. Conway Morris, 1977. A new entoproct-like organism from the Burgess Shale of British Columbia. Palaeontology 20:833–45.

  3.33 From S. Conway Morris, 1977. A redescription of the Middle Cambrian worm Amiskwia sagittiformis Walcott from the Burgess Shale of British Columbia. Paläontologische Zeitschrift 51:271–87.

  3.35 From S. Conway Morris, 1977. A new metazoan from the Cambrian Burgess Shale, British Columbia. Palaeontology 20:623–40.