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Earliest siphuncle-bearing cephalopod from the early Cambrian

Research Paleontology

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TL;DR - A newly described early Cambrian fossil, Eoceras shaanxiense, may be the oldest known cephalopod with a siphuncle-like structure. It pushes cephalopod origins earlier and illuminates how buoyancy-controlling chambered shells evolved.

  • The fossil preserves shell septa and a segmented tube resembling a primordial siphuncle.
  • These features suggest that key components of the cephalopod buoyancy system emerged early in the Cambrian.
  • The find provides evidence for the stepwise assembly of chambered cephalopod shells.

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Earliest siphuncle-bearing cephalopod from the early Cambrian

Nature Zuchen Song, Bing Pan, Junfeng Guo, Jakob Vinther, Guoxiang Li, Jian Han, Heyo Van Iten, Xiaofang Zhao, Xianzhi Pei, Jiaxin Peng, Yaqin Qiang, Boyao Zhang, Hanjie Wen 2026-07-29 doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10868-y
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Providers: Hugging Face · N/A OpenAlex · Citations 0 Publisher · N/A Semantic Scholar · N/A X · N/A Fetched 2026-08-28 14:32:38.391962 UTC

TL;DR - A newly described early Cambrian fossil, Eoceras shaanxiense, may be the oldest known cephalopod with a siphuncle-like structure. It pushes cephalopod origins earlier and illuminates how buoyancy-controlling chambered shells evolved.

  • The fossil preserves shell septa and a segmented tube resembling a primordial siphuncle.
  • These features suggest that key components of the cephalopod buoyancy system emerged early in the Cambrian.
  • The find provides evidence for the stepwise assembly of chambered cephalopod shells.
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