Mosura fentoni: Scientists discover ancient sea predator that breathed through its bottom
Experts in Canada have discovered fossils of a 500-million-year-old predator that lived in the sea.Not only that, it also possessed some rather, err, unusual features.It had three eyes, spiny claws and scientists think it breathed through its... bottom!The discovery was made on the Burgess Shale - an important rock formation and fossil hotspot found in Canada's Rocky Mountains.
What did scientists discover?
Palaeontologists at the Manitoba Museum and Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) made the discovery, which was published in the Royal Society Open Science journal.The new find has been named Mosura fentoni and was about the size of an adult's index finger (around 8cm long). According to researchers, it had three eyes, spiny claws, a circular mouth lined with teeth and a body with swimming flaps along its sides.Experts say these features show it to be part of an extinct group of sea predators known as the radiodonts.However, it also had a feature not seen before - an abdomen-like body region made up of multiple segments at its back end.Joe Moysiuk, Curator of Palaeontology and Geology at the Manitoba Museum, who led the study explained: "Mosura has 16 tightly packed segments lined with gills at the rear end of its body."He added that having respiratory organs at the back end of the body is similar to that found in modern radiodont relatives such as horseshoe crabs, woodlice and insects. Although it's not known exactly why this was the case, scientists think it could have allowed it to capture more oxygen from its environment, or to survive in lower-oxygen environments.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Telegraph
9 hours ago
- Telegraph
South pole of the Sun pictured for the first time
The south pole of the Sun has been seen for the first time, in images sent by the British-built spacecraft Solar Orbiter. Usually it is impossible to see underneath the Sun because Earth and all other spacecraft orbit within a flat disc around its equator. For the first time, Solar Orbiter has moved into a tilted orbit of 17 degrees below the equator, giving a new view of our star. 'Today we reveal humankind's first-ever views of the Sun's pole,' said Prof Carole Mundell, director of science at the European Space Agency (ESA). 'The Sun is our nearest star, giver of life and potential disruptor of modern space and ground power systems, so it is imperative that we understand how it works and learn to predict its behaviour. 'These new unique views from our Solar Orbiter mission are the beginning of a new era of solar science.' Solar Orbiter, which is a joint venture between the ESA and Nasa, launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, in 2020, taking two years to reach the Sun. Constructed by Airbus in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, and carrying several British instruments, the probe was designed to give unprecedented images of the Sun, helping predict dangerous solar flares in time for counter measures to be implemented, such as grounding planes or backing up power plants. Although extreme solar storms are rare, smaller flares have caused widespread disruption in recent times, with a geomagnetic storm leaving six million Canadians without power in 1989. A recent analysis shows that 'severe' magnetic storms occurred in 42 out of the last 150 years, and 'great' super-storms occur six times in every 150 years. The government is so concerned about space weather that it is now listed on its National Risk Register. Over the coming years, the spacecraft will tilt its orbit even further, so the best views are yet to come. 'Transform our understanding' 'This is just the first step of Solar Orbiter's 'stairway to heaven',' said Daniel Müller, ESA's Solar Orbiter project scientist. 'In the coming years, the spacecraft will climb further out of the ecliptic plane for ever better views of the Sun's polar regions. 'These data will transform our understanding of the Sun's magnetic field, the solar wind, and solar activity.' Scientists are hoping to learn how material moves in the Sun's outer layers and why the star's magnetic field flips every 11 years. One of the first scientific findings from Solar Orbiter's polar observations is the discovery that at the south pole, the Sun's magnetic field is currently a mess. While a normal magnet has a clear north and south pole, magnetic field measurements show that both north and south polarity magnetic fields are present at the Sun's south pole during the solar maximum. We are currently experiencing a solar maximum and, in five to six years, magnetic activity is expected to become more orderly. 'Unique and advantageous perspective' 'How exactly this build-up occurs is still not fully understood, so Solar Orbiter has reached high latitudes at just the right time to follow the whole process from its unique and advantageous perspective,' added Prof Sami Solanki, who leads the PHI instrument team from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany. 'We didn't know what exactly to expect from these first observations – the Sun's poles are literally terra incognita.'
The Independent
12 hours ago
- The Independent
Dinosaur fossils found in 1970s are missing link in evolution of T rex
A newly discovered dinosaur from Mongolia, Khankhuuluu mongoliensis, or "Dragon Prince," is considered a crucial ancestor of the Tyrannosaurus rex (T rex), providing insights into the T rex's evolutionary history. Khankhuuluu lived approximately 86 million years ago during the Cretaceous Period, predating the Tyrannosaurus by about 20 million years; it was a mid-sized dinosaur, about 13 feet long, weighing around 1,600 pounds, and likely hunted smaller prey. Paleontologist Darla Zelenitsky notes that Khankhuuluu, meaning "Dragon Prince," was named to reflect its status as a smaller, earlier form that had not yet evolved into a king, unlike the Tyrannosaurus rex, which means "tyrant king of the lizards." Researchers determined Khankhuuluu's anatomy from fossils found in the 1970s, revealing it shared anatomical traits with tyrannosaurs but lacked certain defining characteristics, indicating it was a predecessor and a transitional animal between smaller forerunners and later true tyrannosaurs. According to University of Calgary doctoral student Jared Voris, Khankhuuluu demonstrates that the ancestors to the tyrannosaurs lived in Asia, later crossing a land bridge to North America and evolving into apex predatory tyrannosaurs, eventually leading to the emergence of T rex.
Reuters
14 hours ago
- Reuters
Mongolia's 'Dragon Prince' dinosaur was forerunner of T. rex
June 11 (Reuters) - A newly identified mid-sized dinosaur from Mongolia dubbed the "Dragon Prince" has been identified as a pivotal forerunner of Tyrannosaurus rex in an illuminating discovery that has helped clarify the famous predator's complicated family history. Named Khankhuuluu mongoliensis (pronounced khan-KOO-loo mon-gol-ee-EN-sis), it lived roughly 86 million years ago during the Cretaceous Period and was an immediate precursor to the dinosaur lineage called tyrannosaurs, which included some of the largest meat-eating land animals in Earth's history, among them T. rex. Khankhuuluu predated Tyrannosaurus by about 20 million years. It was about 13 feet (4 meters) long, weighed about 1,600 pounds (750 kg), walked on two legs and had a lengthy snout with a mouthful of sharp teeth. More lightly built than T. rex, its body proportions indicate Khankhuuluu was fleet-footed, likely chasing down smaller prey such as bird-like dinosaurs called oviraptorosaurs and ornithomimosaurs. The largest-known T. rex specimen is 40-1/2 feet long (12.3 meters). Khankhuuluu means "Dragon Prince" in the Mongolian language. Tyrannosaurus rex means "tyrant king of the lizards." "In the name, we wanted to capture that Khankhuuluu was a small, early form that had not evolved into a king. It was still a prince," said paleontologist Darla Zelenitsky of the University of Calgary in Canada, co-author of the study published on Wednesday in the journal Nature, opens new tab. Tyrannosaurs and all other meat-eating dinosaurs are part of a group called theropods. Tyrannosaurs appeared late in the age of dinosaurs, roaming Asia and North America. Khankhuuluu shared many anatomical traits with tyrannosaurs but lacked certain defining characteristics, showing it was a predecessor and not a true member of the lineage. "Khankhuuluu was almost a tyrannosaur, but not quite. For example, the bone along the top of the snout and the bones around the eye are somewhat different from what we see in tyrannosaurs. The snout bone was hollow and the bones around the eye didn't have all the horns and bumps seen in tyrannosaurs," Zelenitsky said. "Khankhuuluu had teeth like steak knives, with serrations along both the front and back edges. Large tyrannosaurs had conical teeth and massive jaws that allowed them to bite with extreme force then hold in order to subdue very large prey. Khankhuuluu's more slender teeth and jaws show this animal took slashing bites to take down smaller prey," Zelenitsky added. The researchers figured out its anatomy based on fossils of two Khankhuuluu individuals dug up in the 1970s but only now fully studied. These included parts of its skull, arms, legs, tail and back bones. The Khankhuuluu remains, more complete than fossils of other known tyrannosaur forerunners, helped the researchers untangle this lineage's evolutionary history. They concluded that Khankhuuluu was the link between smaller forerunners of tyrannosaurs and later true tyrannosaurs, a transitional animal that reveals how these meat-eaters evolved from speedy and modestly sized species into giant apex predators. "What started as the discovery of a new species ended up with us rewriting the family history of tyrannosaurs," said University of Calgary doctoral student and study lead author Jared Voris. "Before this, there was a lot of confusion about who was related to who when it came to tyrannosaur species." Some scientists had hypothesized that smaller tyrannosaurs like China's Qianzhousaurus - dubbed "Pinnochio-rexes" because of their characteristic long snouts - reflected the lineage's ancestral form. That notion was contradicted by the fact that tyrannosaur forerunner Khankhuuluu differed from them in important ways. "The tyrannosaur family didn't follow a straightforward path where they evolved from small size in early species to larger and larger sizes in later species," Zelenitsky said. Voris noted that Khankhuuluu demonstrates that the ancestors to the tyrannosaurs lived in Asia. "Around 85 million years ago, these tyrannosaur ancestors crossed a land bridge connecting Siberia and Alaska and evolved in North America into the apex predatory tyrannosaurs," Voris said. One line of North American tyrannosaurs later trekked back to Asia and split into two branches - the "Pinnochio-rexes" and massive forms like Tarbosaurus, the researchers said. These apex predators then spread back to North America, they said, paving the way for the appearance of T. rex. Tyrannosaurus ruled western North America at the end of the age of dinosaurs when an asteroid struck Earth 66 million years ago. "Khankhuuluu was where it all started but it was still only a distant ancestor of T. rex, at nearly 20 million years older," Zelenitsky said. "Over a dozen tyrannosaur species evolved in the time between them. It was a great-great-great uncle, sort of."
