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. 2019 Oct 17;9:14941. doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-51012-3

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© The Author(s) 2019

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

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Two non-exclusive hypotheses to explain the linear clusters of Ampyx priscus from the Lower Ordovician of Morocco. (a–c) Response to oriented environmental stress (e.g. storms); hydrodynamic signal (higher current velocity represented by white arrows) received by motion sensors triggers re-orientation of individuals; mechanical stimulation and/or possible chemical signals cause gathering, alignment and locomotion in group. (d–f) Seasonal reproductive behaviour; chemical signals (e.g. pheromones; see red circles and red arrows) cause attraction and gathering of sexually receptive individuals (males and females) and migration to spawning grounds. The alignment of individual may have been controlled by mechanical stimuli (as in a–c). Olfactive and mechanical sensors were probably located on the antennules (pink areas 4, 5), and genal and glabellar spines (green areas 1–3), respectively. The exact location of mechanoreceptors is uncertain (possibly on high-relief exoskeletal features such as the glabella).