Talk:Ciliophora

I recently posted this to the MicrobeWiki Admins because I couldn't set up an account, being a non-student.

<BR> IF (and it's not too big an if), your readers are interested in the
<BR> evolutionary interrelationships of your various microbes, then they'll
<BR> probably be interested in the fossil records of microbes too. "Fossil
<BR> records?? Microbes don't DO fossils!" you may cry, but the exceptional
<BR> preservation of the Doushantuo Phosphorites of China shout differently
<BR> (and more loudly). Recent discoveries in this deposit include early
<BR> metazoan embryos (disputed, it must be said) [Xiao et al, Nature, v391
<BR> p553, "Three dimensional preservation of algae and animal embryos in a
<BR> Neoproterozoic phosphorite"].
<BR>
<BR> A recent publication [Li et al, "Ciliated protozoans from the
<BR> Precambrian Doushantuo Formation, Wengan, South China", in "The Rise and
<BR> Fall of the Ediacaran Biota", Geological Society London Special
<BR> Publications v286 p151-156] suggests the recovery of fossilized
<BR> ciliophora from approximately 580 million years ago. Which is an
<BR> interesting datum to compare with "molecular clocks" and genetic
<BR> phylogenies and the other tools that you're probably more familiar with.
<BR>

The Admins responded by giving me an account, and essentially telling me to get on with it. Serves me right for admitting to being a part-time correspondence-school computing student <BOO!>.

So, now I need to look around the rest of the site and see what the local norms are for dealing with fossil evidence. Hmmm, why do I get the feeling that's likely to be a first for this site?