Three-eyed ancient predator ‘unlike any living animal’ discovered

[Pelican Press 0]

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

Three-eyed ancient predator ‘unlike any living animal’ discovered

Scientists examining a rare

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

found in

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

have discovered a

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

with three eyes that lived over 500 million years ago.

The fossil species, named Mosura fentoni for resembling the fictional

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

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

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

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

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

Anomalocaris canadensis.

It was, researchers said, “unlike any living

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

”.

Reconstruction of Mosura fentoni (Art by Danielle Dufault)

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.

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png">

Fossil specimen of Mosura fentoni (Jean-Bernard Caron)

It was distantly related to modern moths and belonged to a deeper branch of

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

including spiders, crabs and millipedes.

“Radiodonts were the first group of

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

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.”

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png">

Joe Moysiuk discovering a specimen of Mosura fentoni at the Burgess Shale (Joe Moysiuk)

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

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

’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”.

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

#Threeeyed #ancient #predator #living #animal #discovered

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

For verified travel tips and real support, visit: https://hopzone.eu/