About 460 million years ago, bizarre creatures with soft bodies roamed the depths of the ocean, which covered
Scientists recently discovered two fossilized specimensthese ancient and peculiar organisms, describing one of them as a new species. The fossils were recovered from a Welsh quarry. They are well preserved and provide insight into a world that disappeared during the Ordovician period (485.4 to 443.8 million years ago), which was inhabited by ancient creatures.
Fossil of the Ordovician animal Mieridduryn bonniae. Its spiny proboscis is seen in close-up on the right.
Image credit: Pates et al./Nature Communications
Fossils found resemble group of extinct onesanimals known as opabiniids. This arose more than half a billion years ago in the Cambrian explosion. It was then that an unprecedented diversity of life was recorded over a period of 20 million years (a relatively short period of geological time). Scientists are not sure whether the newly described species are opabinians or unrelated lookalikes.
Like his predecessors, the newcomer,called Mieridduryn bonniae, it is distinguished by its elongated body. The genus name comes from the Welsh words for "bramble" and "snout" (from the spiny spines lining its hose-like nose) and the name of the quarry owners' niece, "Bonnie".
Illustrator Franz Anthony illustrated M.bonniae, describing the creature as a "tiny alien shrimp worm." M. bonniae is only 13 mm long. It had no eyes, and under its “wings” it had soft triangular legs with ring-shaped segments—another feature associated with opabiniids.
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