The Great Fossil Enigma (63 page)

13.
E. S. Richardson, “The conodont animal,”
Earth Science
6 (1969): 256–57.

14.
Rhodes expressed his skepticism of the Melton and Scott animal in the book in which it was published, and again with Austin in the
Treatise
published in 1981, though he did so with such delicacy that readers, including Scott, may have been uncertain precisely where he stood on the matter. Certainly, he did not conclusively support their interpretation. Frank Rhodes, pers. comm., 29 October 2010.

15.
R. J. Riedl, “Gnathostomulisa from America,”
Science
163 (1969): 445–52; C. J. Durden, J. Rogers, E. L. Yochelson, and R. J. Riedl, “Gnathostomulida: Is there a fossil record? (correspondence),”
Science
164 (1969): 855–56; O. Wetzel, “Die in organischer substanz erhaltenen mikrofossilien des baltischen Kriedefeuersteins,”
Palaeontogr. Abt. A. Paleozoool.-Stratigr.
78 (1933): 1–110.

16.
John R. Horner (b. 15 June 1946) would become a distinguished palaeontologist who demonstrated the sociability of some dinosaurs and later provided technical advice for the
Jurassic Park
films.

17.
Pander Society Letter
4 (August 1970).

18.
W. G. Melton and H. W. Scott, “Conodont-bearing animals from the Bear Gulch Limestone, Montana,” in F. H. T. Rhodes (ed.),
Conodont Paleozoology
,
GSA
Special Paper 141; L. B. Halstead,
The Pattern of Vertebrate Evolution
(San Francisco: Freeman 1969).

19.
Pander Society Letter
4 (August 1970).

20.
Scott, “New specimens.”

12. THE INVENTION OF LIFE

1.
K. Fahlbusch, “Bildung von Calciumphosphat bei fossilen Algen,”
Naturwissenschaften
50 (1973): 517–18; K. Fahlbusch, “Die stellung der Conodontida im biologischen system,”
Palaeontographica
A 123 (1964): 137–201; Lindström,
Conodonts
, 121; H. Beckmann et al., “Sind Conodontent Reste fossiler Algen?” N.
Jb. Geol. Paläont. Abh.
7 (1965): 385–99. On Nease,
Pander Society Newsletter
3 (1969).

2.
Lindström,
Conodonts
, 123–30.

3.
H. Pietzner et al., “Zur chemischen Zusammensetzung and Mikromorphologie der Conodonten,”
Palaeontographica
128 (1968): 115–52. The first fossils to be studied in this way were brachiopods and bivalves, for which, Barnes, Rexroad, and Miller, “Lower Paleozoic,” 3; R. W. Pierce and R. L. LangenheimJr., “Ultrastructure in
Palmatolepis
sp. and
Polygnathus
sp.,”
GSA
Bull.
80 (1969): 1397–1400.

4.
K. J. Müller, “Bürstenbildungbei Conodonten,”
Palaeont. Z.
43 (1969): 64–71; K. J. Müller and Y. Nogami, “Ϝber den feinbau der Conodonten,”
Mem. Fac. Sci., Kyoto Univ., Geol. and Min.
38 (1971): 1–87; K. J. Müller, “Micromorphology of elements: Internal structure,” in R. A. Robison (ed.),
Treatise of Invertebrate Paleontology
, pt. W, suppl. 2, Conodonta (Boulder, Colo./Lawrence:
GSA
and Univ. Kansas Press, 1981), W20–41; P. C. J. Donoghue, “Growth and patterning in the conodont skeleton,”
Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond.
, ser. B, 353 (1998): 633–66.

5.
C. R. Barnes, D. B. Sass, and E. A. Monroe, “Preliminary studies of the ultrastructure of selected Ordovician conodonts,”
R. Ont. Mus. Life Sci. Contrib.
76 (1970): 1–24; C. R. Barnes, D. B. Sass, and M. L. S. Poplawski, “Conodont ultrastructure,” R.
Ont. Mus. Life Sci. Contrib.
90 (1973): 1–36.

6.
F. H. T. Rhodes (ed.),
Conodont Paleozoology
,
GSA
Special Paper 141, vii.

7.
M. Lindström, “On the affinities of conodonts,” in F. H. T. Rhodes (ed.),
Conodont Paleozoology
,
GSA
Special Paper 141, 85–102; M. Lindström, “The conodont apparatus as a food-gathering mechanism,”
Palaeontology
17 (1974): 729–44, 731–32.

8.
S. Rietschel, “Zur Deutung der Conodonten,'
Natur und Museum
103 (1973): 409–18; F. R. Schram, “Pseudocoelomates and a nemertine from the Illinois Pennsylvanian,”
J. Paleont.
47 (1973): 985–89.

9.
Lindström, “On the affinities.”

10.
S. Conway Morris, “A new Cambrian lophophorate from the Burgess Shale of British Columbia,”
Palaeontology
19 (1976): 199–222.

11.
This was
Protohertzina
discovered by Missarzhevskij, see S. Bengtson, “The structure of some Middle Cambrian conodonts, and the early evolution of conodont structure and function,”
Lethaia
9 (1976): 185–206, 185.

12.
Gould,
Wonderful Life
, 149; B. F. Glenister et al., “Conodont pearls?”
Science
193 (1976): 571–73; D. McConnell et al., “Nautiloid uroliths composed of phosphatic hydrogel,”
Science
199 (1978): 208–209. Donoghue later suggested these pearls belonged to an extinct group of bryozoans.

13.
J. Priddle, “The function of conodonts,”
Geol. Mag.
111 (1974): 255–57; Priddle to Scott, 24 January 1974, Scott to Priddle, 4 February 1974, Box 1, Correspondence Re: Conodont Animal, Scott Papers.

14.
G. C. O. Bischoff, “On the nature of the conodont animal,”
Geol.
&
Palaeont.
7 (1973): 147–74.

15.
J. Hofker, “Eine mögliche Tiergruppe, welche die Trägerin der sogenannten Conodonten war,”
Palaeont.
Z. 48 (1974): 29–35.

16.
Bengtson, “Structure.”

17.
S. Bengtson, “Conodonts: The need for a functional model,”
Lethaia
13 (1980): 320 admits to this attraction.

18.
K. J. Müller and D. Andres, “Eine conodontengruppe von
Prooneotodus tenuis
(Müller, 1959) in natürlichen Zusammenhang aus dem Oberen Kambrium von Schweden,”
Palaeont. Z.
50 (1976): 193–200; P. Carls, “Could conodonts be lost and replaced?”
N. Jb. Geol. Paläont. Abh.
155 (1977): 18–64.

19.
E. Landing,
“‘Prooneotodus' tenuis
(Müller, 1959) apparatuses from the Taconic allochthon, eastern New York: Construction, taphonomy and the protoconodont ‘supertooth' model,”
J. Paleont.
51 (1977): 1072–84.

20.
R. S. Nicoll, “Conodont apparatuses in an Upper Devonian palaeoniscid fish from the Canning Basin, Western
Austratlia,”
BMRJ.
Austral. Geol. and Geophys.
2 (1977): 217–28.

21.
V. H. Hitchings and A. T. S. Ramsay, “Conodont assemblages: A new functional model,”
Paleogeog., Palaeoclimat., Palaeoecol.
24 (1978): 137–49.

22.
L. Jeppsson, “Conodont element function,”
Lethaia
12 (1979): 153–71.

23.
S. Conway Morris, “Conodont function: Fallacies of the tooth model,”
Lethaia
13 (1980): 107–108; L. Jeppsson, “Function of the conodont elements,”
Lethaia
13 (1980): 228; Bengtson, “Conodonts.”

24.
H. Szaniawski, “Chaetognath grasping spines recognized among Cambrian protoconodonts,”
J. Paleont.
56 (1982): 806–10; H. Szaniawski, “Structure of protoconodont elements,”
Fossils and Strata
15 (1983): 21–27; Sweet,
Conodonta
174.

25.
R. Buchsbaum,
Animals without Backbones
(Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1951), 1:199–200.

26.
K. J. Müller, “Zoological affinities of conodonts,” in R. A. Robison (ed.),
Treatise of Invertebrate Paleontology
, pt. W, suppl. 2, Conodonta (Boulder, Colo./ Lawrence:
GSA
and Univ. Kansas Press, 1981), W78–W82.

13. EL DORADO

1.
This chapter has, in addition to published resources, drawn upon an unpublished book-length account Dick Aldridge wrote of his scientific research, in part published in R. J. Aldridge and D. E. G. Briggs, “The discovery of conodont soft tissue anatomy and its importance for understanding the early history of vertebrates,” in D. Sepkoski and M. Ruse (eds.),
The Paleobiological Revolution
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), 73–88. This chapter differs considerably from that account by attempting to locate a broader overview of debate in a longer history of discovery. Derek Briggs and Euan Clarkson read a late draft of this chapter and offered some important correctives to factual accuracy. Walt Sweet and Neil Clark provided me with recollections. My last task was to interrogate the extensive files of correspondence that Dick Aldridge had gathered together from various actors in the drama. For the sake of brevity, I have not given precise references to these resources below.

2.
D. E. G. Briggs, “The search for paleontology's most elusive entity: The conodont animal,”
Field Mus. Nat. Hist. Bull.
55 (1984): 11–18; D. E. G. Briggs, E. N. K. Clarkson, and R. J. Aldridge, “Conodont,”
McGraw-Hill Yearbook of Science and Technology
1985 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1984), 132–35; D. E. G. Briggs and E. N. K. Clarkson, “The Lower Carboniferous Granton ‘shrimp bed,' Edinburgh,” in D. E. G. Briggs and P. D. Lane (eds.),
Trilobites and Other Early Arthropods
, Palaeontological Association Special Papers in Palaeontology 30, 616–77 (1983); D. E. G. Briggs, N. D. L. Clark, and E. N. K. Clarkson, “The Granton ‘shrimp-bed,' Edinburg – a Lower Carboniferous KonservatLagerstätte,”
Trans. Roy. Soc. Edinb. Earth Sci.
82 (1991): 65–85; D. Tait, “Notice of a shrimp-bearing limestone in the Calciferous Sandstone Series at Granton, near Edinburgh,”
Trans. Edinb. Geol. Soc.
11 (1924): 131–15.

3.
D. E. G. Briggs, E. N. K. Clarkson, and R. J. Aldridge, “The conodont animal,”
Lethaia
16 (1983): 1–14.

4.
Gould, “Nature's great era,” 12.

5.
J. J. Hearty, “A day at Granton Harbour-conodont II,”
MAPS
[Mid-America Paleontological Society] Digest
, November 1984.

6.
S. Bengtson, “A functional model for the conodont apparatus,”
Lethaia
16 (1983): 38; S. Bengtson, “The early history of the Conodonta,”
Fossils and Strata
15 (1983): 5–19.

7.
J. Dzikand D. Drygant, “The apparatus of panderodontid conodonta,”
Lethaia
19 (1986): 133–41.

8.
W. Sweet, “Conodonts: Those fascinating little whatzits,”
J. Paleont.
59 (1985): 485–94.

9.
R. J. Aldridge and D. E. G. Briggs, “Conodonts,” in A. Hoffman and M. H. Nitecki (eds.),
Problematic Fossil Taxa
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), 227.

10.
P. Janvier, “Conodont affinity: A reply,”
Lethaia
21 (1988): 27; P. Janvier, “‘L'animal-conodonte' enfin demasqué?”
Recherche
14, no. 145 (1983): 832–33.

11.
J. K. Rigby Jr., “Conodonts and the early evolution of the vertebrates,”
GSA
Abstracts with Programs
15 (1983): 671.

12.
R. S. Nicoll, “Multielement composition of the conodont species
Polygnathus xylus xylus
Stauffer, 1940 and
Ozarkodina brevis
(Bischoff & Ziegler, 1957) from the Upper Devonian of the Canning Basin, Western Australia,”
BMR
J. Austral. Geol. Geophys.
9 (1985): 133–47, 146.

13.
D. G. Mikulic, D. E. G. Briggs, and J. Kluessendorf, “A Silurian soft-bodied biota,”
Science
228 (1985): 715–17; D. G. Mikulic, D. E. G. Briggs, and J. Kluessendorf, “A new exceptionally preserved biota from the Lower Silurian of Wisconsin, USA,”
Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. Lond.
, ser. B, 311 (1985): 78–85.

14.
R. J. Aldridge, M. P. Smith, R. D. Norby, and D. E. G. Briggs, “The architecture and function of Carboniferous polygnathacean conodont apparatuses,” in R. J. Aldridge (ed.),
Palaeobiology of Conodonts
(Chichester, UK: Ellis Horwood, 1987), 63–75.

15.
D. E. G. Briggs and S. H. Williams, “The restoration of flattened fossils,”
Lethaia
14 (1981): 157–64.

16.
M. P. Smith, D. E. G. Briggs, and R. J. Aldridge, “A conodont animal from the lower Silurian of Wisconsin, USA, and the apparatus architecture of panderodontid conodonts,” in Aldridge,
Palaeobiology of Conodonts
, 91–104.

17.
Aldridge, “Conodont palaeobiology” (see ch. 4, n. 15).

18.
R. S. Nicoll, “Form and function of the Pa element in the conodont animal,” and R. S. Nicoll and C. B. Rexroad, “Reexamination of Silurian conodont clusters from Northern Indiana,” both in Aldridge,
Palaeobiology of Conodonts
, 77–90.

19.
H. Szaniawski, “Preliminary structural comparisons of protoconodont, paraconodont and euconodont elements,” in Aldridge,
Palaeobiology of Conodonts
, 35–47.

20.
R. J. Aldridge, D. E. G. Briggs, E. N. K. Clarkson, and M. P. Smith, “The affinities of conodonts – new evidence from the Carboniferous of Edinburgh, Scotland,”
Lethaia
19 (1986): 279–91; M. Benton, “Conodonts classified at last,”
Nature
325 (1987): 482–83.

21.
Mashkova,
“Ozarkodina”
(see ch. 8, n. 22); J. Dzik, “Chordate affinities of the conodonts,” in Hoffman and Nitchki,
Problematic Fossil Taxa
, 240–54.

22.
R. P. S. Jefferies,
The Ancestry of the Vertebrates
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986).

23.
G. S. Nowlan and D. B. Carlisle, “The cephalochordate affinities of conodonts,”
Can. Paleont. Biostrat. Seminar, Prog. Abstracts
(1987): 7.