Greenland: ‘giant’ predatory worm more than 500 million years old discovered

A international team of scientists has discovered in northern Greenland the fossil of a ‘giant’ predatory worm measuring about 30 centimeters that inhabited the oceans at least 518 million years ago, reports the University of Bristol in England.

Experts have named this enormous specimen for the time – found in the Sirius Passet fossil locality of the Lower Cambrian, in the Nordic country – as ‘Timorebestia koprii’, combining ‘terrifying beast‘ in Latin and Kopri or Korean Polar Research Institute, which participated in the study.

The authors of the work, published in the journal Science Advancesclaim that these large worms could be “of the first carnivorous animals that colonized the water column more than 518 million years ago”, which implies an ancient dynasty of predators unknown until now.

According to the remains found, the Timorebestia had fins on both sides of the body, long antennae, enormous jaw structures in the mouth and grew to more than 30 centimeters in length, making them “one of the largest swimming animals of the Early Cambrian”.

Jakob Vinther, from the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol, points out that until now it has been considered that “Early arthropods were the dominant predators during the Cambrian, such as the (extinct) anomalocaridids”, which are reminiscent of shrimp.

However, this team points out that the Timorebeast is “a distant, but also close, relative of living arrow worms or chaetognaths” -today small oceanic predators that feed on zooplankton-, which are one of the oldest animal fossils from the Cambrian period.

While arthropods appear in the fossil record between 521 and 529 million years ago, arrowheads date back at least 538 million years, Vinther says.

“Both arrow worms and Timorebeast, more primitive, were swimming predators. Therefore, we can assume that, in all likelihood, they were the predators that dominated the oceans before arthropods took off.“, it states.

Inside the fossilized digestive system of the Timorebeastresearchers found remains of a common swimming arthropod called Isoxys.

“Our research shows that these ancient ocean ecosystems were quite complex, with a food chain that allowed for various levels of predators.”Vinther writes.

“The Timorebeast They were giants of their time and would have been near the top of the food chain”, which makes them equivalent in importance to “some of the major carnivores of modern oceans, such as sharks and seals“, maintains.

For his part, Tae Yoon Park, from the Korean Institute, emphasizes that his discovery “confirms how arrow worms evolved.”

“Living arrow worms have a distinctive nerve center in their bellies, called the ventral ganglion.”, says the leader of the field expedition, who points out that the ganglion has been found preserved both in the Timorebeast as in another fossil called Amiskwia.

Park explains that, over several expeditions to the very remote Sirius Passet, more than 82.5° north, they have collected “a great diversity of new and interesting organisms“, so they will have many more findings to share in the coming years”that will help show what the first animal ecosystems were like and evolved”.