Artistic reconstruction of Mosura Fentoni.
Old, but with modern characteristics. “If you think you’ve seen it all”…
A marine creature never seen before, which is being compared to a “marine moth”, was discovered in Canada and described on Tuesday in a study at the Royal Society Open Science.
The small but surprising arthropod fossil was named after the iconic Japanese fictional monster and Godzilla character, Mothra.
Mosura Fentoni is 506 million years old. It is the size of a human index finger, but has anatomical characteristics never before seen in your group, an extinct line known as radiodontes, a distant relative of insects and crustaceans.
“It is a clear example of evolutionary convergence with modern groups,” explains Joe Moysiukstudy co -author and curator of Paleontology and Geology of the Manitoba Museum, in a statement in.
Like your “cousin”, Anomalocaris canadensis (or “strange shrimp”), this little “monster” had a set of fins along the body, a circular mouth with teeth and thorny claws to grasp prey. But it was the posterior zone of his body that surprised the scientists.
A kind of gills covered 16 compact segments, something like the respiratory adaptations of modern arthropods, such as lime and mollusks.
The anatomical design of the recently discovered “Marine Marine” of fins and narrow abdomen may have helped the old animal adapt to its marine environment.
The internal structures of the fossil were also new. Several specimens of the 61 identified between 1975 and 2022 show signs of a primitive nervous system, digestive organs and even traces of an open circulatory system – where blood flows freely to body cavities instead of through vessels. This system appears today in many modern arthropods.
Researchers believe that well -preserved internal gaps, or blood -filled cavities, confirm longstanding theories about the circulatory systems of the first arthropods.
“If you think you’ve seen it all open the drawer of a museum,” says Moysiuk.
