Latest news with #Mothra
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'.
New York Post
20-05-2025
- Science
- New York Post
Paleontologists discover ‘moth-like' predator ‘the size of your index finger' that lived 506M years ago
Paleontologists recently discovered a 506-million-year-old 'moth-like' predator that lurked in prehistoric Canada. In a press release from the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), officials identified the creature as Mosura fentoni, an extinct arthropod, as news agencies including SWNS reported. Advertisement The museum reported that most of the Mosura fossils were collected by ROM paleontologists at Raymond Quarry in Yoho National Park in British Columbia. Most were found between 1975 and 2022. 'Mosura fentoni was about the size of your index finger and had three eyes, spiny jointed claws, a circular mouth lined with teeth and a body with swimming flaps along its sides,' the museum noted. 'These traits show it to be part of an extinct group known as the radiodonts, which also included the famous Anomalocaris canadensis, a meter-long predator that shared the waters with Mosura.' Advertisement What makes the discovery so interesting to researchers is that Mosura had an abdomen-like body region made up of multiple segments at its back end – which had not been previously observed in any radiodonts. 3 Paleontologists recently discovered a 506-million-year-old 'moth-like' predator that lurked in prehistoric Canada. Royal Ontario Museum Joe Moysiuk, a curator of paleontology and geology at the Manitoba Museum, said Mosurahad 16 of these segments, all lined with gills. '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,' Moysiuk described. Advertisement The museum reported that the species has been nicknamed the 'sea-moth' by field collectors based on its moth-like attributes. 3 Officials identified the creature as Mosura fentoni, an extinct arthropod. Royal Ontario Museum 'This inspired its scientific name, which references the fictional Japanese kaiju also known as Mothra. Only distantly related to real moths – as well as spiders, crabs, and millipedes – Mosura belongs on a much deeper branch in the evolutionary tree of these animals, collectively known as arthropods,' the statement added. Interestingly, the fossils show details of Mosura's internal anatomy – including its nervous system, circulatory system, and digestive tract. Advertisement Instead of arteries and veins, Mosura's heart pumped blood into large internal body cavities called lacunae. 3 Most of the Mosura fossils were collected by ROM paleontologists at Raymond Quarry in Yoho National Park in British Columbia. VW Pics/Universal Images Group via Getty Images ROM curator Jean-Bernard Caron said that '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,' the expert added. 'The details are astounding.'
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Butt-breathing sea predator that roamed the ocean 500 million years ago discovered
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Half a billion years ago, a feisty predator flapped around the primordial seas, hooking prey into its mouth while breathing through long gills on its butt. Researchers recently discovered this 506 million-year-old creature, called Mosura fentoni, in a cache of museum fossils in Canada. The fossils suggest that these early arthropods were more diverse than previously thought. The team thinks the now-extinct arthropod would have looked a bit like a moth — a distant living cousin — so they named it after Mothra, the fictional giant moth from Japanese cinema. Whereas Mothra is large enough to battle Godzilla on the silver screen, the real-life M. fentoni was only about the size of a human finger. Despite its small size, this tiny creature represents a huge and rare find for scientists. The M. fentoni fossils, plucked mostly from the Burgess Shale rock formation in the Canadian Rockies, are so well preserved that they include intricate details of the species' biology, including the creature's nervous system, circulatory system and digestive tract. This is extremely rare for fossils, which scarcely preserve soft tissues, and helps shed light on the evolution of ancient arthropods. "Very few fossil sites in the world offer this level of insight into soft internal anatomy," study co-author Jean-Bernard Caron, the Richard M. Ivey curator of invertebrate paleontology at the Royal Ontario Museum, said in a statement. "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." The researchers published their findings Wednesday (May 14) in the journal Royal Society Open Science. Related: Scientists uncover 'inside-out, legless, headless wonder' that lived long before the dinosaurs Arthropods are a large group of invertebrates with hard exoskeletons, segmented bodies and jointed legs. Today, they make up around three-quarters of all living animals, including insects, arachnids and crustaceans. One of the reasons for their evolutionary success is their specialized body segments. These variable segments have helped arthropods diversify within their groups and ultimately become everything from horseshoe crabs to moths. M. fentoni belonged to a group of ancestral arthropods called radiodonts, identifiable by shared features like side flaps and head appendages. These invertebrates thrived during the Cambrian period (541 million to 485 million years ago), but their fossils have shown relatively uniform body segments with little variety, until now. Researchers collected 60 fossils of the newly described species between 1990 and 2022, primarily from the Raymond Quarry, part of Yoho National Park in British Columbia. Many of these specimens had been sitting in the Royal Ontario Museum for years until the authors of the new study took a closer look at them. The team also identified one other specimen in the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., according to the study. "Museum collections, old and new, are a bottomless treasure trove of information about the past," study lead author Joe Moysiuk, curator of paleontology and geology at the Manitoba Museum, said in the statement. "If you think you've seen it all before, you just need to open up a museum drawer." RELATED STORIES —500 million-year-old worm with 'shuriken' spikes named after gigantic 'Dune' sandworms —Giant 'sea dragon' fossil could be largest mosasaur ever discovered in Mississippi —'Hell ant' with scythe-like jaws may be oldest ant fossil ever discovered The researchers photographed and scanned the fossils to build a picture of this ancient creature's biology. They found that, unlike other radiodonts, M. fentoni had lots of body segments on its rear, which were lined with gills. The species also had the longest gills relative to body length of all known radiodonts, despite being among the smallest, according to the study. The team concluded that the back-end gills were most likely a specialized system for respiration; horseshoe crabs, wood lice and some other living arthropods have subsequently evolved a similar system. Researchers aren't certain why M. fentoni needed the long butt gills, but they speculated it was an adaptation to low-oxygen environments or an active lifestyle — possibly a very active reproductive lifestyle — that required greater oxygen consumption. Either way, the discovery highlights that radiodonts were more diverse than previously thought. "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 said. "The new species emphasizes that these early arthropods were already surprisingly diverse and were adapting in a comparable way to their distant modern relatives."
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Meet the 'sea moth,' a three-eyed sea creature from 500+ million years ago
Scientists have discovered a three-eyed "sea moth" that dates back more than half a billion years ago. Paleontologists Joseph Moysiuk and Jean-Bernard Caron published a study an Wednesday, May 14 that introduces their findings of Mosura fentoni, a new type of radiodont that existed more than 500 million years ago. The "sea moth"-like species caught researchers' attention because of its third, median eye. Scientists named the newly-discovered species "Mosura fentoni," after the fictional Japanese monster kaiju, also known as "Mothra," for its moth-like appearance, the study states. Here's what to know about the newly-discovered deep sea creature. The newly-discovered Mosura fentoni specimen is only about 15 to 61 millimeters long (0.6 to 2.4 inches). The "sea moth" features a short head; small, rounded exoskeleton; three prominent eyes; appendages; large swimming flaps; and densely-packed gills, according to the study. The Mosura fentoni lived during the Cambrian Explosion, which began about 541 million years ago. The Mosura fentoni was a radiodont, a type of arthropod that lived between 520 to 400 million years ago, according to the United Kingdom's Natural History Museum. A popularly known radiodont is Anomalocaris, thought to be one of the first apex predators. Paleontologists believe Mosura fentoni hunted small prey, like shrimp, to avoid competing with other radiodonts in its ecosystem, according to the U.K. Natural History Museum. Mosura fentoni would have used rows of paddle-like fins to glide through the ocean and then use hook-like segments of its feeding appendages to grab small pray and move them through its mouth. While paleontologists are still learning why Mosura fentoni had a third eye, researchers believe the eye may have been used to detect light and the seascape it moved through. Perhaps Mosura fentoni's median eye was similar to that of a dragonfly's extra eyes (yes, dragonflies have five eyes), used to orient themselves during high-speed hunts, according to the U.K. Natural History Museum. A feature of the specimen that has particularly intrigued researchers is its dark, reflective patches, which are called "tonguelettes." Though these structures have been interpreted differently over the years, in Mosura fentoni, researchers believe they suggest structures of an open circulatory system, according to the museum. This means that the Mosura fentoni would have pumped a blood-like substance called haemolymph through a series of body cavities. "Their identity has been controversial, but the well-preserved (body cavities) in Mosura help us to interpret similar, but less clear features that we've seen before in other fossils," Moysiuk told the U.K. museum. "It turns out that preservation of these structures is widespread, confirming the ancient origin of this type of circulatory system." The Mosura fentoni's densely-packed gills also vary from other radiodonts that researchers have studied. These gills indicate that the species may have lived in more active lifestyle in low-oxygen environments. In fact, the gills resemble the same structure that horseshoe crabs possess, which is called the opisthosoma. "That's not to say that horseshoe crabs and radiodonts are especially closely related, but it's instead an example of convergent evolution," said paleontologist Greg Edgecombe, per the U.K. Natural History Museum. Greta Cross is a national trending reporter at USA TODAY. Story idea? Email her at gcross@ This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Sea moth': Scientists discover 3-eyed sea creature, Mosura fentoni
