Paleontologists have discovered a three-eyed creature with a pencil sharpener-like mouth that roamed the sea for prey more than 500 million years ago.
The predator was about the length of an index finger, with three eyes dotting its head and a circular mouth lined with teeth, according to paleontologists at the Manitoba Museum and Royal Ontario Museum who made the discovery.
The beast was also equipped with flaps on both sides of its body for swimming, and had intimidating claws extending from its head.
The well-preserved fossil showed the Mosura’s open circulatory system, consisting of a heart that pumped blood into large body cavities, called lacunae.
The sea moth is believed to have used its body flaps to swim similarly to modern stingrays, sharing the waters with fellow radiodont and early apex predator, the iconic Anomalocaris canadensis.
Over 500 million years ago, a three-eyed creature with a mouth resembling a pencil was found by paleontologists to have roamed the sea in search of food.
According to a paper published this week in the journal Royal Society Open Science, the fossilized remains of one Mosura fentoni, also known as the “sea moth,” were discovered in the Burgess Shale of the Canadian Rockies, providing scientists with new information about animal life in the Cambrian period.
The discovery was made by paleontologists from the Royal Ontario Museum and the Manitoba Museum. The predator was roughly the length of an index finger, with a circular mouth lined with teeth and three eyes scattered across its head. In addition to having fearsome claws that protruded from its head, the beast had swimming flaps on both sides of its body.
According to Joe Moysiuk, the lead author of the study and the paleontology and geology curator at the Manitoba Museum, “it has a pair of these jointed claws at the front of its head that have these very long spines on them.”.
It almost makes it resemble Edward Scissorhands. “..”.
Researchers found that the Mosura, a member of the extinct group of radiodonts, was far more complex than fossils of other radiodonts had previously indicated.
This creature had 16 segments of body at the back that were lined with gills, like modern arthropods, instead of the straightforward abdomen-like region seen in other radiodonts.
“That multi-segmented abdomen-like region of the body of this new species is one of the really interesting things about this discovery, and it’s something that we haven’t seen in any of its close relatives before,” Moysiuk stated. It demonstrates that these animals were able to alter various body parts and specialize them for various purposes, something that many of our living relatives exhibit. “.”.
A heart pumping blood into large body cavities known as lacunae was part of the Mosura’s open circulatory system, as demonstrated by the well-preserved fossil.
The sea moth, which shares waters with the famous Anomalocaris canadensis, an early apex predator and fellow radiodont, is thought to have swam similarly to modern stingrays using its body flaps.
According to Smithsonian Museum of Natural History paleobiologist Stewart Edie, the finding of the Mosura helps researchers better understand how varied life was on Earth even before the Cambrian explosion, when complex life first emerged.
“The foundational body plans for the majority of the major animal groups we know today were established by the Cambrian Explosion, which is well-known,” Edie said, “but it has been unclear how rapidly or widely evolution was occurring within them.”.
Mosura’s recent discovery demonstrates that a group of arthropods, one of which has long been thought to have had a more pedestrian evolutionary history than its close relatives, were also involved in the “explosion.”. “,”.
