Fossils of a new group of animal predators have been located in the Early Cambrian Sirius Passet fossil locality in North Greenland. These large worms may be some of the earliest carnivorous animals to have colonized the water column more than 518 million years ago, revealing a past dynasty of predators that scientists didn’t know existed.
“We have previously known that primitive arthropods were the dominant predators during the Cambrian, such as the bizarre-looking anomalocaridids,” said Dr. Jakob Vinther from the University of Bristol’s Schools of Earth Sciences and Biological Sciences, a senior author on the study. “However, Timorebestia is a distant, but close, relative of living arrow worms, or chaetognaths. These are much smaller ocean predators today that feed on tiny zooplankton.”
“Our research shows that these ancient ocean ecosystems were fairly complex, with a food chain that allowed for several tiers of predators.”
“Timorebestia were giants of their day and would have been close to the top of the food chain. That makes it equivalent in importance to some of the top carnivores in modern oceans, such as sharks and seals back in the Cambrian period.”
Inside the fossilized digestive system of Timorebestia, the researchers found remains of a common, swimming arthropod called Isoxys. “We can see these arthropods were a food source for many other animals,” said Morten Lunde Nielsen, a former Ph.D. student at Bristol and part of the current study.
2024-01-03 17:00:03
Link from phys.org rnrn