Artiopoda

The Artiopoda is a grouping of extinct arthropods that includes trilobites and their close relatives. It was erected by Hou and Bergström in 1997[1] to encompass a wide diversity of arthropods that would traditionally have been assigned to the Trilobitomorpha. Hou and Bergström used the name Lamellipedia as a superclass to replace Trilobitomorpha that was originally erected at the subphylum level, which they considered inappropriate.

Trilobites and their relatives

Leif Størmer recognised on the basis of limb types that a diverse group of Cambrian arthropods, known largely from the Burgess Shale, were likely to be relatives of the trilobites. Hou and Bergström formalised this grouping into the Lamellipedia, consisting of two clades: the Marrellomorpha and the Artiopoda. The Artiopoda have subsequently been considered to consist of two clades; one reusing Trilobitomorpha to encompass trilobites, nektaspids, concilitergans and xandarellids, and the other called Vicissicaudata encompassing aglaspidids, xenopods and cheloniellids.

The broader relationships of the artiopods (and lamellipedians) currently remain unclear, and the possibility that they are a paraphyletic assemblage giving rise to the crown-group euarthropods cannot be excluded. However, they may also be a clade in the stem-group of the Mandibulata or Euarthropoda as a whole.

References

  1. ↑ Hou, X. & Bergström, J. 1997. Arthropods of the Lower Cambrian Chengjiang fauna, southwest China. Fossils and Strata, No. 45. Scandinavian University Press, Oslo, 22 Dec 1997: 116 pp.
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