A previously unknown species of monster, living 500-505 million years ago, promises to answer many questions about ourselves.
According to Sci-News, the astonishing fossil of this half-billion-year-old monster has been discovered in the Marjum Formation of the House Range Mountains in western Utah, USA.
It has recently been named Nuucichthys rhynchocephalus by scientists.
Nuucichthys rhynchocephalus monster – (Graphic: Franz Anthony)
Dating back to 500-505 million years, it belongs to the strange and diverse class of monsters from the Cambrian period, marking a significant leap in the evolution of animals on Earth.
Just before the Cambrian period, Earth’s animals were only primitive multicellular organisms, lacking in species and morphology.
Then, during this period, all suddenly evolved rapidly into a diverse array of monsters, markedly increasing in both population and variety.
Although most of these species went extinct afterward, they laid the foundation for future animal life.
Nuucichthys rhynchocephalus is particularly valuable to paleontology, as it is one of only four rare representatives of the ancestors of vertebrates from this period ever discovered worldwide.
Today’s vertebrates include fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals – which includes us.
The research team, led by paleontologists Rudy Lerosey-Aubril and Javier Ortega-Hernández from Harvard University, stated: “Early vertebrates began to develop large eyes and a series of muscle blocks that we call myotomes, features clearly expressed in this fossil.”
This new species also has a body shape resembling a torpedo, fundamentally sharing many similarities with larval fish – for example, a cavity similar to a primitive gill system – but lacks fins, resulting in limited swimming ability.
However, according to Dr. Lerosey-Aubril, all these features clearly indicate some relationships with vertebrates, even though this primitive species had not yet truly developed bones.
The authors speculate that Nuucichthys rhynchocephalus likely lived in the upper water layers of the ocean.
For this reason, and due to the absence of mineralized biological parts like bones or shells, they were particularly susceptible to decay and rapid decomposition after death, which explains why they are rarely fossilized.
The study has just been published in the scientific journal Royal Society Open Science.
