Posted on 03/30/2015 9:55:22 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
Paleontologists have discovered the fossilized remains of a new arthropod.
Yawunik kootenayi was swimming around oceans in Canada in the Cambrian period, 508 million years ago. It's thought to share a common ancestor with today's spiders and scorpions.
The arthropod had four eyes and arms lined with both tiny claws to help it feed, and long antennae to sense its surroundings.
The study's lead author says species today don't have limbs that function like that.
"This dual function is very, very special, because it does not appear in modern forms. If you take insects as an example, they have a very constrained body plan. But the constraints were not the same in Yawunik."
Researchers at the Royal Ontario Museum found the arthropod in the Marble Canyon fossil beds in Canada. Since they discovered the site in 2012, it's produced some of the best-preserved fossils we know of.
"There's reports of perhaps the liver and heart and some of the gut content of some of these creatures has been fossilized, which is very unusual. It's usually just the hard parts: shells, bones," said Stuart Sutherland, a paleontology professor at the University of British Columbia.
Researchers have published their findings about this latest discovery in the journal Palaeontology.
(Excerpt) Read more at aol.com ...
The fossil swam?
Yes, the article clarified but the headline writer should be sentenced to write out the dictionary definition of "Fossil" twenty times.
In never knew fossils could swim.
Then you haven't been to Miami.
I didn’t know trilobites had livers.
Don’t swim in there, you could catch the kootenayi’s.
(scratch, scratch)
Evolution must have decided that a few real big claws were better than a lot of tiny little ones along the legs. On the other hand, perhaps lots of little ones were good for grabbing tiny little food critters of the Cambrian and conveyor belting them up to the mouth. I think there was a major extinction event some millions of years later.
Thanks for the link. One good link deserves another. SC posted another link recently about giant arthropods, and I thought one looked what I have heard of called Euripterids. So, found this lovely page of hundreds of fossils.
exDemMom; Thanks for the botany lesson. I know more about animal life. Thought you might enjoy this article.
After reading your entire link, I was reminded of a man made environmental disaster area I saw over 50 years ago. It was called Sudbury and was in Ontario, Canada. Miles after miles of barren earth with weird orange and red, and sickly green surfaces. Except for Chernoble, it may have been the worst toxic (mining) site in the world. Googled it and found that considerable remediation has been done since then, but at any rate here are a bunch of photos, some before and some after I presume.
As I was thinking about environmental disasters, I realized that Sudbury might not now be the worst in the world. Decided to check out the Canadian tar sands area since so much fuss is being made about that. After seeing these photos, I can understand why Canadian Indians are so upset. I wonder how God feels about it.
God made it all, then he gave it to us. Doesn’t matter what an entitlement class says.
Oh, geez, I think I forgot to thank you for the link!
Thanks glee’ for sending this link. Glad it turned out to be a new one. That makes two recent arthropod discoveries (the other one being from the Ordovician Period).
Definitely well-named. It LOOKS like a Kootie.
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