Ostracod carnivory through time

Abstract

Carnivory in modern ostracods takes the form of predation, scavenging and parasitism. In the fossil record, carnivory is difficult to prove without the fossilisation of diagnostic functional morphological features or the preservation of the intimate association between the ostracods and the carrion or prey. Six examples of putative carnivory are known in geological deep time, the most persuasive being scavenging myodocopes of Ordovician, Carboniferous and Triassic ages (Myodoprimigenia, Eocypridina and Triadocypris), where swarms of ostracods are found associated with carcasses, and the early Silurian Colymbosathon in which characteristic soft part anatomy is preserved. Other putative scavengers, such as late Jurassic Juralebris, are unlikely to be carnivorous. © 2007 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.