Luke Parry – PALAEONTOLOGY[online]

Tag: Luke Parry

Luke is a PhD student at the University of Bristol, UK, and the Natural History Museum in London. His research focuses on the early evolution of annelid worms. In particular he focuses on the relationships of major groups of polychaetes and how the fossil record informs our knowledge of their evolutionary history. Luke is supervised by Jakob Vinther, Greg Edgecombe and Davide Pisani. Before starting at Bristol, Luke studied for a master’s degree under Martin Brasier at the University of Oxford, UK, focusing on enigmatic organisms from the Ediacaran period.

Contact Details:

School of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol, Wills Memorial Building, Queens Road, Bristol BS8 1RJ, United Kingdom and Department of Earth Sciences, Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London, SW7 5BD, UK

by Luke Parry*1 Introduction: Annelids, whose name comes from the Latin meaning ‘little ring’, make up a phylum of invertebrates with a unique segmented body plan. They are important components of terrestrial and marine ecosystems, and form one of the most diverse invertebrate groups, including as many as 15,000 described species (Fig. 1). Their closest living relatives are the molluscs, brachiopods and nemerteans (proboscis worms). Annelids can broadly be split into two groups, the polychaetes and clitellates. These groups share many features, such as segmented bodies and paired bundles of bristles made of chitin, called chaetae or setae. The most familiar annelids are the clitellates — the earthworms, leeches and their relatives — which have become adapted to a terrestrial lifestyle...