An armored, freshwater Lobopodian with chemical defenses from the Carboniferous

Lobopodians are an evolutionary grade of panarthropods characterized by their vermiform bodies and paired, unjointed lobopodous legs. A paraphyletic group, their study is of particular  significance in understanding the evolution of extant panarthropods. Found exclusively in marine deposits from the Paleozoic, the great majority of species come from Cambrian Konservat-Lagerstätten with only a few representatives known from the Ordovician, Silurian, and Carboniferous. Here we redescribe Palaeocampa anthrax from the Carboniferous Mazon Creek (USA) and Montceau-les-Mines (France) Lagerstätten as a lobopodian. First published in 1865, nearly fifty years before the discovery of the Burgess Shale, Palaeocampa is historically the first discovered lobopod and its presence at the slightly younger Montceau-les-Mines (Gzhelian), makes this the youngest known fossil ‘xenusiid’ lobopodian species. We present the case that Palaeocampa most likely inhabited a freshwater environment, contesting th..., A FTIR  with a microscope (Bruker, Vertex v70v and Hyperion 2000) was used to measure the spectral reflectivity over the fossil surface in the mid Infrared range (wavenumber = 600~4000 cm-1) where the vibrational/rotational energy transitions of the major chemical bonds correlated with organic molecules centered at. The spectral reflectivities qualitatively reveal the presence of molecular bonds and therefore differentiate the measured materials by their chemical compositions. Five FTIR scans were conducted on different areas containing tip, spine and matrix areas of fossil specimen 38032, and four were conducted on specimen 42834, producing nine scans total. All scans used an aperture of 60 µm, and step sizes of these scans ranged from 20-50 µm, for a total of 12175 individual spectra collected across both fossils. Spectra in which multiple category types overlapped were then excluded, resulting in 9114 individual spectra. Systematic differences between measured values were observ..., , # An armored, freshwater Lobopodian with chemical defenses from the Carboniferous

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.p2ngf1w0j](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.p2ngf1w0j)

## Description of the data and file structure

A FTIR  with a microscope (Bruker, Vertex v70v and Hyperion 2000) was used to measure the spectral reflectivity over the fossil surface in the mid Infrared range (wavenumber = 600~4000 cm-1) where the vibrational/rotational energy transitions of the major chemical bonds correlated with organic molecules centered at. The spectral reflectivities qualitatively reveal the presence of molecular bonds and therefore differentiate the measured materials by their chemical compositions. Five FTIR scans were conducted on different areas containing tip, spine, and matrix areas of fossil specimen 38032, and four were conducted on specimen 42834, producing nine scans total. All scans used an aperture of 60 µm, and step sizes of these scans ranged from 20-50 µm, for a total of 12175 individu...,