Fossil Pieces Put Together Reveal A New Marine Predator
CHICAGO (AFP) — The fossils of a monster predator with a circular jaw and a pair of claws on its head has been discovered in the old collections of the Smithsonian museum in Washington, researchers said Thursday.
Fragments of the creature were unearthed in 1912 in Canada's 505 million-year-old Burgess Shale site but researchers initially thought they were part of a crustacean-like animal.
It was not until researchers discovered more complete specimens in the 1990's that they realized fossils previously classified as jellyfish, sea cucumbers and other anthropods were actually pieces of an entirely new beast.
Hurdia victoria has a segmented body covered with gills and a huge three-part carapace, or shell, that projects out from the front of its head, according to the study published in the peer-reviewed journal Science.
"This structure is unlike anything seen in other fossil or living arthropods," said lead author Allison Daley, who has been studying the fossils for three years as part of her doctoral thesis at Uppsala University in Sweden.
"The use of the large carapace extending from the front of its head is a mystery. In many animals, a shell or carapace is used to protect the soft-parts of the body, as you would see in a crab or lobster, but this structure in Hurdia is empty and does not cover or protect the rest of the body. We can only guess at what its function might have been..."
