Charnia Masoni Fossil, New Walk Museum

''Charnia'' is a genus of frond-like lifeforms belonging to the Ediacaran biota with segmented, leaf-like ridges branching alternately to the right and left from a zig-zag medial suture (thus exhibiting glide reflection, or opposite isometry). The genus ''Charnia'' was named after Charnwood Forest in Leicestershire, England, where the first fossilised specimen was found. ''Charnia'' is significant because it was the first Precambrian fossil to be recognized as such.

The living organism grew on the sea floor and is believed to have fed on nutrients in the water. Despite ''Charnia'' fern-like appearance, it is not a photosynthetic plant or alga because the nature of the fossilbeds where specimens have been found implies that it originally lived in deep water, well below the photic zone where photosynthesis can occur.

Diversity

Several ''Charnia'' species were described but only the type species ''C. masoni'' is considered valid. Some specimens of ''C. masoni'' were described as members of genus ''Rangea'' or a separate genus ''Glaessnerina'':
* ''Rangea grandis'' Glaessner & Wade, 1966 = ''Glaessnerina grandis''
* ''Rangea sibirica'' Sokolov, 1972 = ''Glaessnerina sibirica''

Two other described ''Charnia'' species have been transferred to two separate genera
* ''Charnia wardi'' Narbonne & Gehling, 2003 transferred to the genus ''Trepassia'' Narbonne et al., 2009
* ''Charnia antecedens'' Laflamme et al., 2007 transferred to the genus '' Vinlandia'' Brasier, Antcliffe & Liu, 2012

A number of Ediacaran form taxa are thought to represent ''Charnia'' (or ''Charniodiscus'') at varying levels of decay; these include the Ivesheadiomorphs ''Ivesheadia'', ''Blackbrookia'', ''Pseudovendia'' and ''Shepshedia''.

Distribution

''Charnia masoni'' was first described from the Maplewell Group in Charnwood Forest in England and subsequently was found in Ediacara Hills in Australia, Siberia and White Sea area in Russia and Precambrian deposits in Newfoundland, Canada.

It lived around 570-550 million years ago.

Discovery

''Charnia masoni'' was brought to the attention of scientists by Roger Mason, a schoolboy who later became a professor of metamorphic petrology. In 1957 Mason and his friends were rock-climbing in Charnwood Forest, in what is now a protected fossil site in Central England. They noticed this unusual fossil, and Mason took a rubbing of the rock. He showed the rubbing to his father, the minister of Leicester's Great Meeting Unitarian Chapel, who also taught at the local university and knew Trevor Ford, a local geologist. Mason took Ford to the site; Ford wrote up the discovery in the ''Journal of the Yorkshire Geological Society''.

The holotype (the actual physical example from which the species was first described) now resides, along with a cast of its sister taxon ''Charniodiscus'', in Leicester Museum & Art Gallery. Decades later it came to light that Tina Negus, then a 15-year-old schoolgirl, had seen this fossil a year before the boys but her geography schoolteacher discounted the possibility of Precambrian fossils. Mason acknowledges, and the museum's Charnia display explains, that the fossil had been discovered a year earlier by Negus, "but no one took her seriously". She was recognised at the 50th anniversary celebrations of the official discovery.

Significance

''Charnia'' is known from specimens as small as only , up to the largest specimens of in length. It is a highly significant fossil because it is the first fossil which was ever described to have come from undoubted Precambrian rocks. Prior to 1958, the Precambrian was thought to be completely devoid of fossils and consequently possibly devoid of macroscopic life. Similar fossils had been found in the 1930s (in Namibia) and the 1940s (in Australia) but these forms were assumed to be of Cambrian age and were therefore considered unremarkable at the time. ''Charnia'' has become an enduring image of Precambrian animals. Originally interpreted as an alga, it was reinterpreted as a sea pen (a sister group to the modern soft corals) from 1966 onwards. Acceptance of ''Charnia'' as a Precambrian lifeform led to recognition of other major Precambrian animal groups, although the sea pen interpretation of ''Charnia'' has recently been discredited, and the current "state of the art" is something of a "statement of ignorance".

An alternative theory has arisen since the mid-1980s, following the work of Adolf Seilacher who suggested that ''Charnia'' belongs to an extinct group of unknown grade which was confined to the Ediacaran Period. This suggests that almost all the forms that have been postulated to be members of many and various modern animal groups are actually more closely related to each other than they are to anything else. This new group was termed the Vendobionta,Seilacher, A. 1984. Late Precambrian and Early Cambrian Metazoa: preservational or real extinctions? 159–168. In Holland, H. D., Trendal, A. F. and Bernhard,
S. (eds). ''Patterns of Change in Earth Evolution''. Springer Verlag, New York, NY, 450 pp. a clade whose position in the tree of life is unclear, perhaps united by its construction via unipolar iterations of one cell family.

The holotype is a star attraction at the Leicester Museum & Art Gallery. A day-long seminar in 2007 devoted to ''Charnia'' called it "Leicester's fossil celebrity".

Ecology

Little is known about the ecology of ''Charnia''. It was benthic and sessile, anchored to the sea floor. According to one currently popular hypothesis, it probably lived in deep waters, well below the wave base, thus placing it out of range of photosynthesis. Furthermore, it has no obvious feeding apparatus (mouth, gut, etc.) so its lifestyle remains enigmatic. Some have speculated that it survived either by filter feeding or directly absorbing nutrients, and this is currently the focus of considerable research.Narbonne

The growth and development of the Ediacara biota is also a subject of continued research, and this has discredited the sea pen hypothesis. In contrast to sea pens, which grow by basal insertion, ''Charnia'' grew by the apical insertion of new buds.

See also

* List of Ediacaran genera
* ''Charniodiscus''

References

External links

An article on the discovery of ''Charnia masoni'':
*https://web.archive.org/web/20070510112737/http://www.charnia.org.uk/newsletter/brit_assoc_2002.htm

A write-up of the discovery, with Charnia art by Tina Negus

{{Taxonbar, from=Q134755

Ediacaran life
Rangeomorpha
Charniidae
Ediacaran Europe