Pneumodesmus facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Pneumodesmus Temporal range: Late Silurian/Early Devonian PreЄ Є O S D C P T J K Pg N
Reconstruction of Pneumodesmus newmani
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Subphylum:	Myriapoda
Class:	Diplopoda
Subclass:	†Archipolypoda
Order:	Incertae sedis
Family:	Incertae sedis
Genus:	Pneumodesmus
Species:	P. newmani
Binomial name
Pneumodesmus newmani Wilson & Anderson, 2004

Photomicrograph of the type specimen

Pneumodesmus newmani is a species of millipede that lived in the Paleozoic era. Its exact age is uncertain. 428 million years ago in the late Silurian was first suggested. A later study suggested the early Devonian.

It is the first myriapod fossil, and the oldest known creature to have lived on land. The single specimen was discovered in 2004 near Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire.

Discovery and naming

The fossil of P. newmani was found by Mike Newman. He is a bus driver and amateur palaeontologist from Aberdeen. The fossil was in a layer of sandstone rocks on the foreshore of Cowie, near Stonehaven. The species was later called "newmani" in honour of its finder. The fossil is kept in National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh.

Description

In the photograph above, you can see the back is covered with hard plates, and wispy slender legs. The animal is definitely segmented, and it is like, or related to, millipedes.

Its cuticle has what look like openings or spiracles. These are part of a gas exchange system that would work in air. So P. newmani is thought to be the earliest documented arthropod with a tracheal system, and the first known oxygen-breathing animal on land.