Latest news with #Moysiuk
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
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
16-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
A three-eyed ‘sea moth' was an ocean predator 506 million years ago
Sign up for CNN's Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. With the help of more than five dozen fossils, paleontologists have uncovered a tiny three-eyed predator nicknamed the 'sea moth' that swam in Earth's oceans 506 million years ago. Mosura fentoni, as the species is known, belongs to a group called radiodonts, an early offshoot of the arthropod evolutionary tree, according to a new study published Tuesday in the journal Royal Society Open Science. While radiodonts are now extinct, studying their fossilized remains can illuminate how modern arthropods such as insects, spiders and crabs evolved. One of the most diverse animal groups, arthropods are believed to account for more than 80% of living animal species, said lead study author Dr. Joe Moysiuk, curator of paleontology and geology at the Manitoba Museum in Winnipeg. Well-preserved specimens of the previously unknown Mosura fentoni also reveal something that's never been seen in any other radiodont: an abdomen-like body region with 16 segments that include gills at its rear. This part of the creature's anatomy is similar to a batch of segments bearing respiratory organs at the rear of the body found in distant modern radiodont relatives like horseshoe crabs, woodlice and insects, Moysiuk said. The feature, likely used to help Mosura capture more oxygen from its environment, could represent an example of evolutionary convergence, in which similar-looking structures evolve independently in different groups of organisms, he 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' said study coauthor Dr. Jean-Bernard Caron, the Richard M. Ivey Curator of Invertebrate Paleontology at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, in a statement. No animal living today quite looks like Mosura fentoni, Moysiuk said, although it had jointed claws similar to those of modern insects and crustaceans. But unlike those critters, which can have two or four additional eyes used to help maintain orientation, Mosura had a larger and more conspicuous third eye in the middle of its head. 'Although not closely related, Mosura probably swam in a similar way to a ray, undulating its multiple sets of swimming flaps up and down, like flying underwater,' Moysiuk said in an email. 'It also had a mouth shaped like a pencil sharpener and lined with rows of serrated plates, unlike any living animal.' About the size of an adult human's index finger, Mosura and its swimming flaps vaguely resemble a moth, which led researchers to call it the 'sea moth.' Some of the Mosura specimens provided tantalizing traces of front claws, which helped the radiodont feed. Caron used a miniature jackhammer to remove rock overlying the head of a specimen and found a perfect outstretched spiny claw tucked beneath, Moysiuk said. 'Unlike many of its relatives which have claws lined with a meshwork of spines for capturing prey, Mosura has long, smooth-sided, finger-like spines that are forked at their tips,' Moysiuk said. 'It's a bit of a puzzle how exactly it was using these to capture prey, but (we) think it might have seized smaller animals with the tips of the spines and passed them towards the mouth.' While there is no direct evidence of what Mosura ate, we know it lived alongside animals like acorn worms, bristle worms and small crustacean-like arthropods that the radiodont could have preyed on. In turn, Mosura may have been prey for other larger radiodonts, such as the shrimplike Anomalocaris canadensis, or the gargantuan jellyfish Burgessomedusa phasmiformis. 'This showcases there are yet more examples of these animals, specifically, forms that were active marine predators, filling in more of the picture of how this ancient marine ecosystem functioned,' said Dr. Russell D.C. Bicknell, a postdoctoral researcher in the American Museum of Natural History's division of paleontology. Bicknell was not involved in the new study but previously authored research on Anomalocaris canadensis. Mosura's unexpected trunk region challenges how researchers understand radiodont body evolution and how members of the group shifted from having wormlike bodies, said Rudy Lerosey-Aubril, an invertebrate paleontologist at the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology who was also not involved with the new research. 'It may offer a rare glimpse into developmental processes, particularly in early members of the group, before evolutionary shifts led to the more consistent body organization seen in most known species,' Lerosey-Aubril said in an email. The first Mosura fentoni specimen was discovered early in the 20th century by paleontologist Charles Walcott, who was the first known person to collect fossils from British Columbia's Burgess Shale, a 508 million-year-old fossil bed. Walcott was the director of the US Geological Survey and administrator of the Smithsonian Institution. But no research about the Mosura specimen he found was ever published, and little was known about radiodonts at the time. The other 60 fossils were collected by researchers at the Royal Ontario Museum between 1975 and 2022. 'It's only with time and study of related species that the significance of these fossils gradually became clear,' Moysiuk said. 'More recently, our team started finding additional specimens at new Burgess Shale sites in Kootenay National Park, which helped to spur on this publication.' The fossils found in the Burgess Shale, located within the Canadian Rockies, represent a wide range of animals from the end of the Cambrian Period, when life diversified on a large scale. The Burgess Shale fossils are also known for being incredibly well preserved. 'In this study we were able to discern traces of the nervous, digestive, and circulatory system, which are almost never preserved as fossils,' Moysiuk said in an email.'This provides unique and significant insight into life at this critical time in Earth's history.' The team was able to spy traces that represented bundles of nerves in the eyes, which — like modern arthropods — Mosura used for image processing, Caron said. Rather than arteries and veins, Mosura also had an open circulatory system, meaning that its heart pumped blood into lacunae, or large internal body cavities. The cavities were preserved as reflective patches within the body. The discovery of numerous complete tiny radiodont specimens is remarkable, Lerosey-Aubril said. The fine details preserved within the fossil underscore the importance of the Burgess Shale, he added, and a broader picture of the full diversity of Cambrian animals will require investigating other sites that hold fossils and evidence of soft-bodied organisms. Radiodont fossils are permanently on display in the Royal Ontario Museum's 'Dawn of Life' exhibition, and a Mosura specimen will be on view at the Manitoba Museum later this year.
Yahoo
07-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
2 Ukrainian military officers appointed as deputy defense ministers
Ukraine's Cabinet of Ministers appointed two new deputy ministers of defense on Feb. 7, Taras Melnychuk, the Cabinet's representative in parliament, announced. The deputy ministers are Lieutenant General Yevhen Moysiuk and Captain Valerii Churkin. "These decisions are part of a comprehensive approach to strengthening our Armed Forces, modernizing management, and advancing military technology," Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said. The appointment came a week after Umerov faced backlash following his decision to fire Maryna Bezrukova, head of Ukraine's Defense Procurement Agency (DPA). The minister replaced her with Arsen Zhumadilov as temporary director, despite the agency's supervisory board voting to extend her contract days earlier. Umerov also dismissed Deputy Defense Minister Dmytro Klimenkov and two agency supervisory board members, Taras Chmut and Yuriy Dzhygyr. In late January, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) launched a criminal investigation into the potential abuse of power, as well as office position by Umerov. Described as "one of the most experienced officers" in the Ukrainian army, Moysiuk served as the Air Assault Forces commander and was deputy to former Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi. Earlier in the day, President Volodymyr Zelensky dismissed Moysiuk as special commissioner on implementation of the international security agreements. He will be in charge of the development of Ukraine's Defense Forces, including mobilization and military training, Umerov said. Churkin, who joined the Armed Forces at the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion, is the head of Ukraine's Center for Scaling Technology Solutions. As deputy defense minister, he will focus on defense innovations and technological development of the Ukrainian army. Read also: Defense Minister Umerov dismisses top official who stood up to him We've been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
