450-million-year-old fossil of a rare sea creature found
0450-million-year-old fossil of a rare sea creature found
A group of Canadian scientists found a 450-million-year-old fossil belonging to a very rare sea creature during their excavations for a while. The fossil was named "Tomlinsonus Dimitrii".
Paleontologist Joe Moysiuk, who leads the Canadian research team, said that they found a fossil of an arthropod species from the Ordovician period, which lived about 450 million years ago, and they named the fossil "Tomlinsonus Dimitrii".
Moysiuk said that the well-preserved fossil was found in Brechin, on the northeast coast of Lake Simcoe, and informed that the fossil was about the size of a human forefinger.
He explained that the fossil was part of the marrellomorph group of arthropods.
"Tomlinsonus has an ornate head shield adorned with extraordinary feather-like spines. This odd-looking animal probably crossed the muddy seafloor using a pair of extremely long-legged limbs."
SEDIMENTS PROTECT ORGANISMS BY COVERING
Noting that the fossil lived on the floor of the shallow oceans that covered most of the province of Ontario at that time, Moysiuk said that the sea floor, which was regularly exposed to storms, was covered and the sediments formed covered the organisms in the region and protected them.
"The discovery at Brechin was unique in that Tomlinsonus was completely soft-bodied and not normally preserved," said study co-author George Kampouris, noting that generally only the hard parts of an organism, such as its shells and bones, tend to fossilize.
"IT MAKES A MUCH BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF ITS DIVERSITY"
Jean-Bernard Caron from the research team also gave information about the study.
"Finding the soft tissue fossil was a big surprise because these creatures were not seen in the shallow reef sediments that occupied the vast waters of eastern North America during the Ordovician period. Finding fully soft-bodied species like Tomlinsonus provides a much better understanding of the diversity that really existed at the time."
The study of the Tomlinsonus fossil, exhibited in the Dawn of Life exhibition at the Royal Ontario Museum, has been published in The Journal of Paleontology.