Latest news with #CambrianPeriod
Observer
27-05-2025
- Science
- Observer
This Fossil's 3 Eyes Are Not Its Most Surprising Feature
More than 500 million years before 'The Simpsons' introduced us to Blinky, a fish with an extra eye swimming through Springfield's Old Fishin' Hole, a three-eyed predator chased prey through seas of the Cambrian Period. Known as Mosura fentoni, this creature is a worthy addition to the bizarre bestiary preserved in the Burgess Shale, a fossil deposit in the Canadian Rockies. But the animal's anatomy, described in the journal Royal Society Open Science, shows it may not be as alien as it looks. The first Mosura specimen was unearthed by a paleontologist more than a century ago. Over recent decades, paleontologists at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto have uncovered many more Mosura fossils, which they nicknamed 'sea moths' because of flaps that help them swim. Sea moths were not fish, but they were related to radiodonts, a group of arthropods that dominated Cambrian food chains. But a closer inspection would not occur until Mosura specimens were unearthed in 2012 in a Burgess Shale outcrop. Having both old and new specimens encouraged researchers to 'finally figure this animal out,' said Joseph Moysiuk, who studied the Marble Canyon fossils as a doctoral student. Moysiuk teamed up with his adviser at the Royal Ontario Museum, Jean-Bernard Caron, to examine 60 sea moth specimens. The specimens were photographed under polarized light to capture the flattened fossils' detailed anatomy. A defining feature of living arthropods is the division of their bodies into specialized parts. For example, crustaceans like crabs have different appendages adapted to perform certain functions like feeding or walking. Fossils of many early arthropod ancestors reveal relatively simple body plans. Researchers have therefore long proposed that segmentation took a long time to evolve. Mosura bucks this trend. Despite measuring only 2.5 inches long, the creature's body was divided into as many as 26 segments. 'It's something that we've never seen in this group of animals before,' said Moysiuk, who is now at the Manitoba Museum in Winnipeg. In addition to its wide swimming flaps, the animal possessed a highly segmented trunk at the back of its body brimming with gills, resembling the abdomenlike structures that horseshoe crabs, woodlice and some insects use to breathe. — JACK TAMISIEA / NYT
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Bumps on ancient, armored fish may have given rise to teeth in animals, study finds
Sign up for CNN's Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. The sensitive interior of human teeth might have originated from a seemingly unlikely place: sensory tissue in fish that were swimming in Earth's oceans 465 million years ago. While our teeth are covered in hard enamel, it's dentine — the tooth's inner layer responsible for carrying sensory information to the nerves — that reacts to the pressure of a hard bite, pain, or changes like extreme cold or sweetness. When trying to determine the origins of teeth, one of the many possibilities considered by researchers over the years was that teeth may have evolved from bumps on the armored exoskeletons on ancient fish. But the true purpose of the structures, called odontodes, was unclear. Now, a new study and 3D scans of fossils have yielded evidence that the external bumps contained dentine, which likely helped fish sense their surroundings. Scientists reported the findings Wednesday in the journal Nature. 'Covered in these sensitive tissues, maybe when it bumped against something it could sense that pressure, or maybe it could sense when the water got too cold and it needed to swim elsewhere,' said lead study author Dr. Yara Haridy, postdoctoral researcher in the department of organismal biology and anatomy at the University of Chicago, in an email. During its analysis, the team also uncovered similarities between the odontodes and features called sensilla, which exist as sensory organs in the shells of modern animals such as crabs and shrimp, and can be found in fossilized invertebrate arthropods. The development of odontodes in fish, which are vertebrates, and sensilla in arthropods, which are invertebrates, is a prime example of evolutionary convergence — when similar features evolve independently in different animal groups, Haridy said. 'These jawless fish and Aglaspidid arthropods (extinct marine arthropods) have an extremely distant shared common ancestor that likely had no hard parts at all,' Haridy said. 'We know that vertebrates and arthropods evolved hard parts independently and amazingly they evolved similar sensory mechanisms integrated into their hard skeleton independently.' While arthropods have retained their sensilla, odontodes appear to be the direct precursors to teeth in animals. As the researchers compared sensilla and odontodes, they also arrived at another finding: One species, once considered to be an ancient fish, was actually an arthropod. Haridy's original aim was to solve the mystery of the oldest vertebrate animal that exists in the fossil record. She approached museums across the country and asked whether she could scan any fossil specimens they had from the Cambrian Period, 540 million years to 485 million years ago. Then, she settled in for an all-nighter at the Argonne National Laboratory, where she used their Advanced Photon Source to capture high-resolution computer tomography, or CT, scans. 'It was a night at the particle accelerator; that was fun,' Haridy said. At first glance, a fossil of a creature called Anatolepis looked like a vertebrate fish – and indeed, previous research from 1996 had identified it as one. Haridy and her colleagues noticed that there was a series of pores filled with a material that appeared to be dentine. 'We were high fiving each other, like 'oh my god, we finally did it,'' Haridy said. 'That would have been the very first tooth-like structure in vertebrate tissues from the Cambrian. So, we were pretty excited when we saw the telltale signs of what looked like dentine.' To confirm their discovery, the team compared the scans with those of other ancient fossils, as well as modern crabs, snails, beetles, sharks, barnacles and even miniature suckermouth catfish that Haridy had raised herself. Those comparisons showed that Anatolepis more closely resembled arthropod fossils, including one from the Milwaukee Public Museum. And what the team thought were tubules lined with dentine were actually more similar to sensilla. But they did find dentine-containing odontodes in ancient fish like Eriptychius and Astraspis during the scans. The confusion over Anatolepis' true nature had stemmed from the fragmentary nature of the fossils. The most complete pieces are only about 3 millimeters (0.1 inches) in size, Haridy said, which proved to be a challenge for comparative research reliant on external imaging. But the new scans she conducted enabled a 3D look at the fossils, revealing their internal anatomy. 'This shows us that 'teeth' can also be sensory even when they're not in the mouth,' Haridy said. 'So, there's sensitive armor in these fish. There's sensitive armor in these arthropods. This explains the confusion with these early Cambrian animals. People thought that this was the earliest vertebrate, but it actually was an arthropod.' The cutting edge modern imaging used in the study is resolving the debate over Anatolepis, said Dr. Richard Dearden, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in Leiden, the Netherlands. Dearden was not involved in the new research. '(The study authors) use cutting edge modern imaging approaches to try and settle this question, assembling an impressive swathe of comparative data to convincingly establish that Anatolepis is indeed not a vertebrate,' Dearden said in an email. Armored jawless fish like Astraspis and Eriptychius and ancient arthropods like Anatolepis coexisted in the muddy shallow seas of the Ordovician period, which occurred between 485.4 million and 443.8 million years ago. Other contemporaries of these animals included large cephalopods such as giant squid, as well as huge sea scorpions. Features like odontodes and sensilla would help fish and arthropods distinguish predators from prey. 'When you think about an early animal like this, swimming around with armor on it, it needs to sense the world. This was a pretty intense predatory environment and being able to sense the properties of the water around them would have been very important,' said senior study author Dr. Neil Shubin, the Robert R. Bensley Distinguished Service Professor of Organismal Biology and Anatomy at the University of Chicago, in a statement. 'So, here we see that invertebrates with armor like horseshoe crabs need to sense the world too, and it just so happens they hit on the same solution.' Several modern fishes have odontodes, while sharks, skates and some catfishes are covered in small toothlets called denticles, which cause their skin to feel like sandpaper, Haridy said. Haridy studied the tissues of the catfish she raised and realized their denticles were connected to nerves much in the same way that teeth are in animals. When comparing teeth, odontodes and sensilla, they were all incredibly similar, she said. 'We think that the earliest vertebrates, these big, armored fish, had very similar structures, at least morphologically. They look the same in ancient and modern arthropods, because they're all making this mineralized layer that caps their soft tissue and helps them sense the environment,' Haridy said. It's likely that the genes necessary to form odontodes also produced sensitive teeth in animals — including humans — later, according to the study authors. The findings support the idea that sensory structures appeared first on exoskeletons, which then provided the genetic information that could then be used to create teeth as they became a necessary part of life, the study authors noted. 'Over time, fish evolved jaws, and it became advantageous to have pointy structures around and in the mouth,' Haridy said. 'Little by little some fish with jaws had pointy odontodes at the edge of the mouth and then eventually some were directly in the mouth and then lost across the body. The relationship between odontodes and teeth is continuously being clarified by new fossils and modern genetics.' The new research refines the timeline for the first appearance of hard tissues and the earliest ancestors of jawed fishes by removing Anatolepis from the fish tree of life, said Dr. Lauren Sallan, assistant professor and head of the macroevolution unit at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology in Japan. Sallan, who was not involved in the new study, said it also raises an intriguing new hypothesis that the scalelike precursors of teeth evolved to detect prey, friends or predators in the water. 'This is a real challenge to seemingly obvious assumptions that hard tissues like dentine and structures like scales and teeth evolved (primarily) for protection on the body or feeding in the throat,' Sallan said. 'Instead, they may have been 'exapted' (subsequently modified) for these uses, much like how limbs evolved before they were used to walk on land. It's also interesting to see the degree of convergence between early armored arthropods and fishes, and raises questions about how much ecological overlap occurred between these two groups.' Haridy wants to continue the search for fossils that could lead to the oldest vertebrate, given that researchers expect there are earlier vertebrates than Astraspis and Eriptychius. And even though they didn't discover it through this research, they made worthwhile findings, Shubin said in an email. 'We were disappointed that (Anatolepis) wasn't a vertebrate but we were amazed by the new ideas that arose,' Shubin said. 'And that took us in an entirely new direction. That's science.'
Time of India
19-05-2025
- Science
- Time of India
Paleontologists discover a ‘three-eyed' predator that once roamed Earth's oceans 500 million years ago
Image source: New York Times Paleontologists, aided by more than 60 fossil finds, discovered Mosura fentoni , an intriguing three-eyed predator that roamed in the oceans of Earth more than 500 million years ago. Also referred to as the "sea moth" because of its moth-like body, the ancient arthropod sheds important light on the early evolution and diversity of the arthropods. The discovery illuminates the diverse ecosystems of the Cambrian Era, underlining the influence of Mosura and other predators on ocean life. Mosura fossils provide an unprecedented peek into early arthropod anatomy, giving us a greater appreciation of ancient existence and evolutionary creation. 'Three-eyed' predator Mosura fentoni and the early history of arthropods Mosura fentoni was one of a group known as the radiodonts, a small but significant predator during the Cambrian Period. Radiodonts are part of an ancient lineage of the arthropod branch of the family tree, an important group that gives rise to today's living insects, spiders, and crustaceans. The research, done by scientists who wrote in the Royal Society Open Science journal, provides new insight into what these early arthropods were and how much like modern versions they look. The discovery of Mosura fentoni adds to the understanding of the history of arthropod evolution. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Trade Bitcoin & Ethereum – No Wallet Needed! IC Markets Start Now Undo Though extinct, radiodonts are crucial to studies of the evolution of current arthropods, which occupy over 80% of all living animal species. According to lead study author Dr. Joe Moysiuk, curator of paleontology at the Manitoba Museum, the fossils provide a rare glimpse into this extinct group's history. Mosura fentoni characteristics One of the most noticeable characteristics of Mosura fentoni is its then-unknown abdomen-shaped body segment, with 16 segments, such as gills at the rear. It is a then-unknown body characteristic in any other radiodont. It has a shape resembling structures in its modern relatives such as horseshoe crabs, woodlice, and insects, where respiratory organs are borne by segments. This feature likely helped Mosura to efficiently suck oxygen from its environment, potentially indicating evolutionary convergence—the mechanism by which bodily similarities develop in unrelated groups independently. Study co-author Dr. Jean-Bernard Caron, a Royal Ontario Museum curator, noted that Mosura's diverse anatomy demonstrates early flexibility of arthropods. Mosura's sea moth shape and its mysterious 'third eye' Mosura's "sea moth" nickname is because of its body shape and size resemblance to moths today—about as long as an adult human index finger. Although it resembles one, no living creature is in Mosura's full form. Although the animal possessed insect-like and crustacean-like jointed claws, its strangest feature was its third eye. Located in the middle of its head, this additional eye is distinct from the many eyes of present-day arthropods, in an orientation maintenance function. Moysiuk speculated that Mosura's significant third eye helped guide it through the underwater environment, as part of its life as a predator. Secondly, Mosura's swimming style would also be the same as a ray fish by using its several swimming flaps in a smooth wave-like manner to drive it forward in water. Its single pattern of locomotion along with its pencil-point mouth that was bordered by saw-like plates made Mosura stand apart from any other living being in the present world. How Mosura's unique claws and features helped it survive Although it is not known precisely how Mosura took its prey, front claws in some of the fossils are an indication. A fossil spiny claw was discovered by Dr. Jean-Bernard Caron while excavating one of the specimens with caution. Spiny claws were used by most related species to capture prey, but Mosura claws had smooth, extended sides and bifurcated ends, which might have assisted in grasping and moving small animals towards its mouth. It is presumed that Mosura likely preyed upon smaller arthropods and worms that lived in its habitat. However, it too could have been a victim of the sea's larger predators, such as the Anomalocaris canadensis, a radiodont that looked like a shrimp, or the giant jellyfish Burgessomedusa phasmiformis. The discovery of Mosura's unique features helps researchers to reimagine the evolution of early arthropods like radiodonts. Harvard invertebrate paleontologist Rudy Lerosey-Aubril highlighted the way Mosura's unique body form can help researchers glimpse the developmental pathways that existed prior to evolutionary changes leading to more symmetrical body forms in subsequent species. Mosura's fossils from the Burgess Shale reveal its inner structure The fossils that made the identification of Mosura fentoni arose were found in the Burgess Shale, a world-renowned fossil bed within the Canadian Rockies. The Burgess Shale is renowned for preserving beautifully detailed remains of ancient creatures in the Cambrian Period, approximately 508 million years ago. Additional evidence of over 60 more specimens of Mosura were collected between 1975 and 2022, providing researchers with ample information about this enigmatic creature. The biggest asset of the fossilised Mosura specimens is perhaps the ability to recognize impressions of the circulatory, digestive, and nervous systems. The soft tissues are not usually preserved in fossils, giving the initial opportunity to view the inner works of an ancient arthropod. Researchers were able to identify packs of nerves within the eyes, allowing Mosura to read visual cues, much like modern arthropods. Mosura also had an open circulatory system, where the blood was circulated into internal cavities with the reflective leftovers left behind that have been maintained in the fossil remains. Mosura's role in the Cambrian ecosystem revealed The discovery of Mosura fentoni not only enlightens us about the evolution of arthropods but also provides us with crucial information about life on our planet during the Cambrian Explosion—a time when the diversification of the animal kingdom was happening at high speed. In the view of Dr. Russell D.C. Bicknell, an American Museum of Natural History scientist, this discovery provides us with information regarding how early sea ecosystems functioned, particularly the role of predators like Mosura. The extraordinary fossils of Mosura fentoni are proof of the diversity of life in Cambrian times and the level of sophistication of primitive arthropods. The perfect preservation of these fossils, especially at the Burgess Shale, is a goldmine for researchers who wish to know more about the history of life on Earth. Also Read | King cobra vs desert kingsnakes: Key difference on the basis of features, diet, venom and more
Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
What paleontologists learned from fossils of a 3-eyed predator that lived 500 million years ago
Paleontologists have discovered that a three-eyed sea moth predator lived on Earth half a billion years ago with evidence found in one of the most fossil-rich areas of the world. The fossils of Mosura fentoni -- a species of arthropod that lived in the Cambrian Period -- were discovered in Burgess Shale in the Canadian Rockies, a region known for its exceptional preservation of fossils, according to a paper published Wednesday in Royal Society Open Science. The species belongs to a group of arthropods nicknamed "sea moths" that use a flap-like apparatus similar to wings to help them swim, the authors said in a statement. The mechanism gives the species a "vague appearance" to a moth and are distantly related to modern moths, spiders, crabs and millipedes. MORE: Underwater camera captures elusive tentacled creature 3 miles below ocean surface The 506 million-year-old fossil is an imprint of a creature that had three eyes, a jaw lined with teeth, sharp claws and abdominal segments lined with gills. However, the specimen is not a fish, the researchers said. It belongs to the radiodont group, an ancient line of sea predators that are now instinct. "Radiodonts were the first group of arthropods to branch out in the evolutionary tree, so they provide key insight into ancestral traits for the entire group," said Jean-Bernard Caron, curator of invertebrate paleontology at the Royal Ontario Museum, in a statement. Several of the fossils are so clear that they show details of the specimen's internal anatomy, including parts of the nervous and circulatory systems and digestive tract, Caron said, describing the details as "astounding." "Very few fossil sites in the world offer this level of insight into soft internal anatomy," Caron said. "We can see traces representing bundles of nerves in the eyes that would have been involved in image processing, just like in living arthropods." MORE: What scientists learned from a well-preserved fossil of this iconic Jurassic-era species The species had an open circulatory system that pumped blood into large internal body cavities called lacunae, which were preserved as reflective patches in the fossils. The new species emphasizes that these early arthropods were already surprisingly diverse and were adapting in a comparable way to their distant modern relatives Even more surprising than Mosura fentoni's three eyes is a tail-like body made of segments lined with gills on its abdomen -- something never before seen on a radiodont. The researchers compared its rear section to modern arthropods such as insects and horseshoe crabs. "This is a neat example of evolutionary convergence with modern groups, like horseshoe crabs, woodlice, and insects, which share a batch of segments bearing respiratory organs at the rear of the body,' said Joe Moysiuk, curator of paleontology and geology at the Manitoba Museum and lead author of the study, in a statement. MORE: Scientists discover 'legless, headless wonder' that predated the dinosaurs The "intriguing" adaption may be the result of habitat preference of behavioral characteristics of the species that required more efficient respiration, the researchers said. The Burgess Shale fossil sites, designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1980, are located within the Yoho and Kootenay National Parks. Dozens of Mosura fossils have been collected in Burgess Shale in recent decades, according to the paper. What paleontologists learned from fossils of a 3-eyed predator that lived 500 million years ago originally appeared on
14-05-2025
- Science
What paleontologists learned from fossils of a 3-eyed predator that lived 500 million years ago
Paleontologists have discovered that a three-eyed sea moth predator lived on Earth half a billion years ago with evidence found in one of the most fossil-rich areas of the world. The fossils of Mosura fentoni -- a species of arthropod that lived in the Cambrian Period -- were discovered in Burgess Shale in the Canadian Rockies, a region known for its exceptional preservation of fossils, according to a paper published Wednesday in Royal Society Open Science. The species belongs to a group of arthropods nicknamed "sea moths" that use a flap-like apparatus similar to wings to help them swim, the authors said in a statement. The mechanism gives the species a "vague appearance" to a moth and are distantly related to modern moths, spiders, crabs and millipedes. The 506 million-year-old fossil is an imprint of a creature that had three eyes, a jaw lined with teeth, sharp claws and abdominal segments lined with gills. However, the specimen is not a fish, the researchers said. It belongs to the radiodont group, an ancient line of sea predators that are now instinct. "Radiodonts were the first group of arthropods to branch out in the evolutionary tree, so they provide key insight into ancestral traits for the entire group," said Jean-Bernard Caron, curator of invertebrate paleontology at the Royal Ontario Museum, in a statement. Several of the fossils are so clear that they show details of the specimen's internal anatomy, including parts of the nervous and circulatory systems and digestive tract, Caron said, describing the details as "astounding." "Very few fossil sites in the world offer this level of insight into soft internal anatomy," Caron said. "We can see traces representing bundles of nerves in the eyes that would have been involved in image processing, just like in living arthropods." The species had an open circulatory system that pumped blood into large internal body cavities called lacunae, which were preserved as reflective patches in the fossils. The new species emphasizes that these early arthropods were already surprisingly diverse and were adapting in a comparable way to their distant modern relatives Even more surprising than Mosura fentoni's three eyes is a tail-like body made of segments lined with gills on its abdomen -- something never before seen on a radiodont. The researchers compared its rear section to modern arthropods such as insects and horseshoe crabs. "This is a neat example of evolutionary convergence with modern groups, like horseshoe crabs, woodlice, and insects, which share a batch of segments bearing respiratory organs at the rear of the body,' said Joe Moysiuk, curator of paleontology and geology at the Manitoba Museum and lead author of the study, in a statement. The "intriguing" adaption may be the result of habitat preference of behavioral characteristics of the species that required more efficient respiration, the researchers said. The Burgess Shale fossil sites, designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1980, are located within the Yoho and Kootenay National Parks. Dozens of Mosura fossils have been collected in Burgess Shale in recent decades, according to the paper.
