Latest news with #Mosura
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
24-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Bizarre Three-Eyed Predator Hunted The Ocean Half a Billion Years Ago
A predator that swam Earth's oceans more than half a billion years ago is unlike any creature that lives on our planet today. Mosura fentoni possessed three eyes, grasped its prey with spiny claws, ate with a circular, tooth-lined maw, swam with the aid of flippers that lined either side of its body, and had 26 body segments – more than any other radiodont, the extinct group of animals to which it belonged. Luckily, it would only have been about as long as your finger – most things back then were pretty small. But its segmented tail end has fascinated paleontologists Joe Moysiuk of the Manitoba Museum and Jean-Bernard Caron of the Royal Ontario Museum, who characterized the strange beastie from its fossilized remains in the famous Burgess Shale. They named Mosura for its resemblance to a moth, even though the relationship is distant and tenuous. "Mosura has 16 tightly packed segments lined with gills at the rear end of its body," Moysiuk explains. "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." The oceans of Earth's Cambrian period, between around 539 and 487 million years ago, were a different place than our planet today. That was when life really took off, and the ocean started to thrive. We don't have many records of that time, but the Burgess Shale is, really, if we're being completely frank, a marvel of fossil preservation. It formed around 508 million years ago, when silty mud flowed across the seafloor, trapping and preserving a large number of organisms as it went. That mud became a fossil bed known as a Lagerstätte, so exceptional that fine details, soft tissue, and even internal structures were captured in the sediment. It revealed a rich ecosystem filled with mysterious creatures so bizarre that we've often been left baffled and wrong about their anatomy. In this environment lived the radiodonts, a group of animals that shared a common ancestor with arthropods, but has since gone extinct. This group includes the famous Anomalocaris, a fearsome beast that could have grown up to a meter long. That might not seem very large to us, but back then, when most things were small, it was a giant. Mosura was not a giant, but it was one-of-a-kind, at least as far as we know. Moysiuk and Caron studied 61 fossilized individuals of the species, and characterized it in detail. "Very few fossil sites in the world offer this level of insight into soft internal anatomy," Caron says. "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 details are astounding." Of particular interest was the animal's circulatory system. It did not involve veins, as the circulatory systems of vertebrates do, but was instead open, like the circulation of modern arthropods. In crabs, spiders, insects, and other arthropods, the heart simply pumps blood (or hemolymph) into cavities in their bodies, where it swirls around their organs to perform its function. In Mosura, these cavities are called lacunae. They filled the creature's body, and extended into the swimming flaps that extended from each segment, visible as reflective patches in the fossils. "The well-preserved lacunae of the circulatory system in Mosura help us to interpret similar, but less clear features that we've seen before in other fossils. Their identity has been controversial," Moysiuk says. "It turns out that preservation of these structures is widespread, confirming the ancient origin of this type of circulatory system." As for its strange, powerful respiratory system at the rear end of its body, its specialized structure suggests Mosura may have had unique needs. Perhaps its habitat was different from that of other radiodonts, or maybe its hunting methods required enhanced respiratory functions. This is one of those questions that is impossible to answer without more information. However, Mosura is a beautiful example of the strategies life adopts to thrive according to circumstance. "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," Caron says. "The new species emphasizes that these early arthropods were already surprisingly diverse and were adapting in a comparable way to their distant modern relatives." The research has been published in Royal Society Open Science. Earth's Rotation Is Slowing Down, And It Might Explain Why We Have Oxygen New Jersey Hawk Develops Clever Hunting Strategy Using Traffic Signals Your Sensitive Teeth May Exist So Ancient Fish Could Avoid Danger
Winnipeg Free Press
21-05-2025
- Science
- Winnipeg Free Press
Fascinating new fossil provides insight into evolution of arthropods
In his office piled high with papers, behind a desk strewn with specimens, Joe Moysiuk, curator of paleontology and geology at the Manitoba Museum, turns a fossil over in his hands. 'You never really know what you'll uncover when you head into the field,' he says, grinning. 'That's what keeps it exciting — the chance to piece together something that reshapes how we understand life's earliest history.' MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS Joe Moysiuk, curator of paleontology and geology at the Manitoba Museum, said the discovery of the new fossil shows that arthropods evolved in more varied ways than we previously thought. He gestures toward an illustration of his latest discovery, Mosura fentoni. 'This little creature might seem insignificant at just five or six centimetres long, but its features tell an incredible story. Three eyes, a unique segmented body and flap-like structures — nothing like it exists today,' he says. 'The more we study it, the clearer it becomes that arthropods evolved in more varied ways than we previously thought.' Mosura fentoni is a new genus from the Burgess Shale in British Columbia, detailed in his upcoming paper, Early evolvability in arthropod tagmosis exemplified by a new radiodont from the Burgess Shale (co-authored with Jean-Bernard Caron, University of Toronto), in Royal Society Open Science. 'This animal is incredible. It has compound eyes, a third eye positioned at the front and flap-like structures that resemble moth wings, but were used for swimming instead. The back of its body looks like an insect's abdomen, specialized in a way we hadn't seen in radiodonts (an extinct form of invertebrate predator) before,' Moysiuk says. Mosura has 16 segments lined with gills at the rear end of its body, a feature that converges with modern creatures such as horseshoe crabs, woodlice and insects, which have respiratory organs at the rear of the body. The reason for this adaptation is unknown, but researchers theorize it may be related to particular habitat preference or behaviour of Mosura that called for more efficient respiration. 'This little creature might seem insignificant… but its features tell an incredible story… nothing like it exists today.'–Joe Moysiuk The animal's vague similarity to a moth inspired its discoverers to 'have a bit of a fun' when naming it, Moysiuk says. ''Mosura' is a nod to the Japanese movie monster Mothra, and 'fentoni' honours one of our longtime ROM (Royal Ontario Museum) colleagues,' he says. Moysiuk flips through a series of photos taken under different lighting conditions, revealing intricate features of the fossil, which has a circular, tooth-filled mouth and spiny claws. 'One image shows the external features — the dark outline of the body. Another captures reflective patches extending into the swimming flaps. These remnants of circulatory structures help us understand how early arthropods transported oxygen,' he explains. Instead of arteries and veins, Mosura had an open circulatory system; its heart pumped blood into large internal body cavities. The preservation of these structures confirms the ancient origin of this type of system, Moysiuk says. The fossils in the Burgess Shale — dating from the Cambrian Period, approximately 508 million years ago — are famous for their well-preserved soft parts, showing details such as eyeballs and brains. 'The Burgess Shale has been known since 1909, when Charles Walcott discovered it,' Moysiuk says of the site located in Yoho National Park and Kootenay National Park in British Columbia. Danielle Dufault / Royal Ontario Museum Life An artistic rendering of what Mosura fentoni would have looked like. 'The preservation here is phenomenal — eyes, guts, even an animal's last meal trapped inside its stomach.' His own connection to the site runs deep, dating to his first expedition in 2014 when Moysiuk was still an undergraduate. 'We had just discovered a new Burgess Shale site in Marble Canyon, in Kootenay National Park, south of the original one Yoho National Park site. Twenty per cent of the species we found at Marble Canyon were previously unknown,' he says. He pauses, tapping a cabinet in his office. 'Some of the specimens we studied for this paper were collected back in 2014; others date even earlier. It's a long process. Years of collecting, followed by years of research and writing.' Down the hall, in the Collection Room, Moysiuk slides open another towering cabinet, revealing mammoth tusks, ancient bison skulls and rare fossils that yield fragments of prehistoric life. MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS A eurypterid 'scorpion' found in Grand Rapids, Man., represents a new species that has yet to be named. 'Every specimen has a story, from how they were found to what they reveal about natural history ' Moysiuk says, following the outline of a tusk with one finger. He steps back, scanning the room. 'So many of us live in cities now, disconnected from the natural world. Museums help bridge that gap. They let people experience things they might never see otherwise,' he says. Back in his office, surrounded by maps from past expeditions, he smiles. 'Evolution is full of surprises. These fossils challenge us to rethink long-held assumptions, and when you get the chance to be part of that process, to rewrite even a small piece of Earth's history, it's pretty special,' Moysiuk says. Wednesdays A weekly look towards a post-pandemic future. He gestures to his desk, buried beneath research materials. 'It's a puzzle, piecing together the story of these ancient creatures,' he says. MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS Moysiuk shows off some of the Manitoba Museum's collection of fossils. 'It's sharing these stories with colleagues and the public that's always the greatest reward.' A specimen of Mosura will go on display at the Manitoba Museum this fall. arts@ Joe Moysiuk, curator of paleontology and geology at the Manitoba Museum, notes that he's also an evolutionary biologist with research interests in macroevolution, evolutionary developmental biology and the origin of animal body plans. 'I am passionate about natural history and collections-based research,' says the curator, who is also an adjunct professor at the University of Saskatchewan and a research associate at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto (his hometown). 'My work frequently combines systematics with the assessment of various broader evolutionary questions related to animal origins,' says the scientist, who has published papers in influential journals such as Nature and Current Biology. Moysiuk has travelled to important Paleozoic fossil sites in Manitoba, Ontario, British Columbia and the eastern United States. 'I am especially interested in sites exhibiting exceptional preservation, and have led the description of new occurrences of rare soft-tissue preservation,' Moysiuk says. His most recent work, Early evolvability in arthropod tagmosis exemplified by a new radiodont from the Burgess Shale, co-authored with Jean-Bernard Caron, was published in the Royal Society Open Science on May 14.
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Three-eyed ancient predator ‘unlike any living animal' discovered
Scientists examining a rare fossil found in Canada's Burgess Shale have discovered a predator with three eyes that lived over 500 million years ago. The fossil species, named Mosura fentoni for resembling the fictional Japanese kaiju Mothra, was about the size of an index finger with three eyes, spiny jointed claws, a circular mouth lined with teeth, and a body with swimming flaps along its sides, researchers from the Royal Ontario Museum said. Mosura fentoni, also dubbed 'sea moth' due to its broad swimming flaps and narrow abdomen, was a member of an extinct group of animals called radiodonts, which included the meter-long marine predator Anomalocaris canadensis. It was, researchers said, 'unlike any living animal'. Mosura had a unique abdomen-like body region with multiple segments at its back end, according to a new study published in the journal Royal Society Open Science. '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," study co-author Joe Moysiuk said. Scientists said it was not clear why Mosura had this unique body adaptation but suspected it could be related to a particular habitat preference requiring more efficient respiration. It was distantly related to modern moths and belonged to a deeper branch of arthropods including spiders, crabs and millipedes. "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,' Jean-Bernard Caron, another author of the study, said. 'The new species emphasises these early arthropods were already surprisingly diverse and were adapting in a comparable way to their distant modern relatives.' Mosura did not have arteries and veins, but an "open" circulatory system that involved the heart pumping blood into large internal body cavities called lacunae. "The well-preserved lacunae of the circulatory system in Mosura help us to interpret similar, but less clear features that we've seen before in other fossils,' Dr Moysiuk said. The Burgess Shale fossil grounds in Canada's Yoho and Kootenay National Parks are recognised as Unesco World Heritage Sites. 'Very few fossil sites in the world offer this level of insight into soft internal anatomy. We can see traces representing bundles of nerves in the eyes that would have been involved in image processing, just like in living arthropods,' Dr Caron said, adding that the 'details are astounding'.
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Three-eyed ancient predator ‘unlike any living animal' discovered
Scientists examining a rare fossil found in Canada's Burgess Shale have discovered a predator with three eyes that lived over 500 million years ago. The fossil species, named Mosura fentoni for resembling the fictional Japanese kaiju Mothra, was about the size of an index finger with three eyes, spiny jointed claws, a circular mouth lined with teeth, and a body with swimming flaps along its sides, researchers from the Royal Ontario Museum said. Mosura fentoni, also dubbed 'sea moth' due to its broad swimming flaps and narrow abdomen, was a member of an extinct group of animals called radiodonts, which included the meter-long marine predator Anomalocaris canadensis. It was, researchers said, 'unlike any living animal'. Mosura had a unique abdomen-like body region with multiple segments at its back end, according to a new study published in the journal Royal Society Open Science. '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," study co-author Joe Moysiuk said. Scientists said it was not clear why Mosura had this unique body adaptation but suspected it could be related to a particular habitat preference requiring more efficient respiration. It was distantly related to modern moths and belonged to a deeper branch of arthropods including spiders, crabs and millipedes. "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,' Jean-Bernard Caron, another author of the study, said. 'The new species emphasises these early arthropods were already surprisingly diverse and were adapting in a comparable way to their distant modern relatives.' Mosura did not have arteries and veins, but an "open" circulatory system that involved the heart pumping blood into large internal body cavities called lacunae. "The well-preserved lacunae of the circulatory system in Mosura help us to interpret similar, but less clear features that we've seen before in other fossils,' Dr Moysiuk said. The Burgess Shale fossil grounds in Canada's Yoho and Kootenay National Parks are recognised as Unesco World Heritage Sites. 'Very few fossil sites in the world offer this level of insight into soft internal anatomy. We can see traces representing bundles of nerves in the eyes that would have been involved in image processing, just like in living arthropods,' Dr Caron said, adding that the 'details are astounding'.
