Phylogeny, palaeobiology, diversity, and evolutionary significance of Euarthropoda (excluding Trilobita) from the Lower Devonian Hunsrück Slate (Germany)

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The Lower Devonian Hunsrück Slate (Germany) is known for its unique fauna and flora and the high quality of the preservation of pyritiesed fossils. Especially the arthropods are highly diverse and remarkable for their preservation. Some of them are of unknown systematic affinity and ambiguous phylogenetic relationship. These morphologically very archaic taxa, like Vachonisia rogeri, Mimetaster hexagonalis, and Devonohexapodus bocksbergensis, are poorly studied with respect to much newly available material, the new theories of arthropod phylogeny and evolution, the interpretation of their taphonomy and palaeobioloy, and the reconstruction of the palaeoenvironment. The same applies to new material of the taxon Pygnogonida and other chelicerates as well as for remarkable new material of crustaceans of the taxon Phyllocarida. These outstanding new material linked with the aspects mentioned before take centre stage in the project proposed here. Additionally, the arthropods of the Hunsrück Slate show that stem group arthropods are not always “primitive” in a common sense. On the contrary, they indicate early and presumably multiple radiations, a high diversity, and a high degree of specialization of arthropods in the Palaeozoic. To illustrate these aspects and to compare the diversity and disparity of the Hunsrück arthropods with communities from the Cambrian as well as other time horizons is an important goal of the project proposed here.