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Massive new animal species discovered in half-billion-year-old Burgess Shale:
Palaeontologists at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) have uncovered the remains of a huge new fossil species belonging to an extinct animal group in half-a-billion-year-old Cambrian rocks from Kootenay National Park in the Canadian Rockies. The findings were announced on September 8, 2021, in a study published in Royal Society Open Science.
Named Titanokorys gainesi, this new species is remarkable for its size. With an estimated total length of half a meter, Titanokorys was a giant compared to most animals that lived in the seas at that time, most of which barely reached the size of a pinky finger.
"The sheer size of this animal is absolutely mind-boggling, this is one of the biggest animals from the Cambrian period ever found," says Jean-Bernard Caron, ROM's Richard M. Ivey Curator of Invertebrate Palaeontology.
Evolutionarily speaking, Titanokorys belongs to a group of primitive arthropods called radiodonts. The most iconic representative of this group is the streamlined predator Anomalocaris, which may itself have approached a meter in length. Like all radiodonts, Titanokorys had multifaceted eyes, a pineapple slice-shaped, tooth-lined mouth, a pair of spiny claws below its head to capture prey and a body with a series of flaps for swimming. Within this group, some species also possessed large, conspicuous head carapaces, with Titanokorys being one of the largest ever known.
Journal Reference:
J.-B. Caron, J. Moysiuk. A giant nektobenthic radiodont from the Burgess Shale and the significance of hurdiid carapace diversity, Royal Society Open Science (DOI: 10.1098/rsos.210664)
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 11 2021, @11:16PM (5 children)
Looking at the reconstruction, it's fascinating to see how competition has moved away from drastic armouring of the larger predators.
Also, here's hoping the Burgess oil & gas permits are all denied and revoked. Or we could destroy this uniquely dense fossil source for a tiny bit of short term, climate destroying profit. Whatever, either way!
(Score: 2, Disagree) by khallow on Sunday September 12 2021, @12:04AM (4 children)
A tiny bit of short term, climate tweaking profit that just happens to help almost eight billion people. Not much point to talking vaguely about "fossil sources" while ignoring why we extract oil and natural gas in the first place - to make the world a better place.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 12 2021, @05:55PM (1 child)
I don't know how you think oil & gas companies help 8b people. They help their investors.
I don't know how you think climate change helps 8b people. The poor among them are disproportionately harmed, while the rich have financial instruments that can leverage the volatility for profit.
I spy the fool at the table, if you genuinely believe that.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday September 13 2021, @01:15AM
So we have oil & gas companies and we have some degree of climate change in that comprehensive of yours, but what we're missing is that oil & gas itself. That's the thing that helps eight billion people.
The oil & gas make those poor less poor and hence, less disproportionately harmed.
Notice first, that the item missing from your list above was stated here. It's like I actually thought about what you were going to write before you wrote it. So who again is the fool at the table?
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Mockingbird on Sunday September 12 2021, @09:23PM (1 child)
That is why we extract oil and gas? I always thought it was the "climate destroying profit." Hard to tell one from t'other.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday September 13 2021, @01:34AM