Reconstruction of the Herefordshire (Silurian) Lagerstätte Biota Previous Track Record

The four scientists associated with the project have formed a cohesive team working on the Herefordshire Lagerstätte since 1999. During the course of this ongoing project, initially funded by NERC (GR GR9/3132 and GR3/12053) and later by the Leverhulme Trust (F/08581/E), we have developed and honed a pioneering set of software techniques to reconstruct the Herefordshire fossils from optical tomographic sections, obtained through high-resolution serial grinding (Sutton et al. 2001b). This approach facilitated detailed reconstructions and analyses of a broad range of new species, resulting in a series of high-profile papers publications including four in Nature, one in Science, and ten in Proceedings of the Royal Society (B). No overall summary of results or conclusions is possible, as each study has provided insights into the softbodied anatomy and hence evolution of a different invertebrate group. Three examples are given instead.