Data from: The ‘butterfly animal,’ Papiliomaris kluessendorfae n. gen. n. sp.: An enigmatic bivalved arthropod of the Waukesha biota
Data files
Sep 24, 2025 version files 195.47 KB
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Anderson-Rosbach_et_al_Butterfly_animal_SOM_character_table.xlsx
192.43 KB
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README.md
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Abstract
The phylogenetic relationships among arthropods remain contentious because morphological studies face challenges in resolving certain branches. Particularly difficult are relationships within and between the stem arthropods, owing largely to too few well-preserved fossil representatives. Additional fossil evidence, particularly from exceptional deposits like the Silurian Waukesha Lagerstätte in Wisconsin, helps to bolster our views on the evolutionary history of arthropods by providing well-preserved examples of novel taxa that could fit between early diverging stem-arthropod clades and modern euarthropods, thus building possible bridges between the two. Formed in karstification-induced troughs of the Manistique Formation paleoslope, the Waukesha Lagerstätte preserves a unique biota of organisms from the Telychian Age, mostly through secondary precipitation of francolite. Perhaps most well known from this deposit are the many peculiar and enigmatic arthropod taxa that could help resolve early arthropod cladistic relationships. We add to the growing body of work on the diversity, phylogeny, and taxonomic descriptions of the Waukesha biota by detailing a previously unnamed bivalved arthropod, informally called ‘the butterfly animal’ in past literature, which we here designate as Papiliomaris kluessendorfae n. gen. n. sp. We also conducted a Bayesian phylogenetic analysis that placed several recently described Waukesha taxa as basal members of the ‘Mandibulate’ clade within the Euarthropoda. The dataset included in this Dryad supplement represents the character matrix/nexus file for phylogenetic analyses presented in the associated manuscript, following the Aria (2020) matrix, along with a separate sheet differentiating our alternative hypotheses for several character states.
Dataset DOI: 10.5061/dryad.573n5tbn1
Description of the data and file structure
Character matrix for the Waukesha 'butterfly animal', Papiliomaris kluessendorfae n. gen. n. sp.
This data matrix follows that of Aria, C., 2020, Macroevolutionary patterns of body plan canalization in euarthropods: Paleobiology, v. 46, p. 569–593, https://doi.org/10.1017/pab.2020.36. However, following our initial access of Aria's supplemental matrix https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.vhhmgqnr8, it appears that the link has since become inactive. As a result, we have included a supplemental PDF file that details the character list in its entirety.
Files and variables
File: Anderson-Rosbach_et_al_Butterfly_animal_SOM_character_table.xlsx
Description: Character matrix
Variables
- 1-268 each represent character states as coded by Aria (2020, and completed by taxon.
- Taxon names are listed in Column A of the Excel file.
- Character states, as originally defined by Aria (2020), are detailed in the appended PDF. Note that the Aria (2020) character list was amended from Aria and Caron (2019) and Aria and Caron (2017). Remarks for some characters are included directly following the character definition. Brackets [ACX] following a character refer to the corresponding character number in Aria and Caron (2017). Last, any character in the appended PDF noted by an asterisk (*****) is either newly added characters since Aria and Caron (2017) or had undergone substantial change in coding or definition from the earlier matrix versions. We have repeated the 2020 character list verbatim with asterisks, original remarks, and references.
Files uploaded to Zenodo:
Anderson-Rosbach_et_al_Butterfly_animal_SOM_character_list.pdf (This list presents discrete morphological character states used in phylogenetic coding, with binary (0/1) or multistate values describing anatomical features across general, lobopodian, visual, cephalic, neural, and sternal traits, primarily for comparative analysis in arthropod and panarthropod evolution.) and Anderson-Rosbach_et_al_Butterfly_animal_SOM_figure.pdf (A cartoon illustrating the set-up of the anoxic trap that would become the Waukesha Formation at the base of the paleoscarp eroded into the Manistique Formation)
Code/software
MrBayes v. 3.2.7
Access information
Data was derived from the following sources:
- Aria, C., 2020, Macroevolutionary patterns of body plan canalization in euarthropods: Paleobiology, v. 46, p. 569–593.
- Aria, C., and Caron, J.-B., 2019. A middle Cambrian arthropod with chelicerae and proto-book gills: Nature, v. 573, p. 586–589.
- Aria, C., and Caron, J.-B., 2017. Burgess Shale fossils illustrate the origin of the mandibulate body plan: Nature, v. 545, p. 89–92.