The eyes of a tiny 'Orsten' crustacean - A compound eye at receptor level?

Among the oldest fossil crustaceans are those of the Late Cambrian (Furongian 499 ± 0.3-488.3 ± 1.7 Ma) of Västergötland, central Sweden and the lower Ordovician (Tremadocian 488.3 and 478.6 Ma) of the island of Őland. These are three-dimensionally preserved in nodules from the so called 'stinkstone' ('Orsten') limestone. 'Orsten'-like fossils represent tiny, often meiobenthic organsisms (Haug, Maas, & Waloszek, 2009) smaller than 2 mm, which mainly were arthropods, especially crustaceans close to the stemline. As a result of phosphatisation, hairs, bristles and even cellular structures up to 0.3 μm are preserved (Walossek, 1993), especially compound eyes, as typical for all visually orientated crustaceans (Schoenemann et al., 2011). We show a miniscule prototype of a compound eye (∼40 μm) in a small crustacean, which lived almost half a billion years ago. The eye is close to but comfortably established above being limited in its resolving power by diffraction, but it is too small to be an apposition eye, normally regarded as the basal form of all compound eyes, as is found in bees, dragonflies, crustaceans and many other arthropods still living today. The facets of this compound eye are ∼8 μm in size, the surface structure indicates the relicts of a tiny lens covering each facet. In order to work functionally and to ensure that that diffraction and waveguide problems were avoided, it seems reasonable to suppose that the compound eye consisted of visual units, each with a single photoreceptor cell directly below a weak lens for capturing and slightly focusing the light. The entire unit has a diameter similar to that of a normal sensory cell as found in compound eyes. Thus, the early compound eye analysed here may be interpreted as a prototype representing the earliest stages of the evolution of crustacean compound eyes.

• We analyse miniscule compound eyes which are almost half a billion years old. • Our results show that the facets are too small to house “normal” ommatidia. • The results indicate a compound eye equipped with visual units at receptor level. • This tiny compound eye probably forms an evolutionary prototype of compound eyes of crustaceans.