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About 460 million eld ago , bizarre soft - corporal puppet puttered through the depths of an ocean that cover what is now Wales . They propel themselves with undulating , rounded flaps that beckon over distich of squatty legs and probe the water with spike - studded schnoz .
Scientists of late discovered two fossilize specimen of these ancient and peculiar organisms , describing one of them as a newfangled species . The fossils , which were hollow from a Welsh pit on individual land , cater an unusually well - preserved glimpse of these wee weirdos and offer clues about the vanished world that they inhabited during the Ordovician period ( 485.4 million to 443.8 million years ago ) .
Artistic reconstruction of the Ordovician fossils Mieridduryn bonniae.
In some way , the newfound fossils resemble an animal group known as opabiniids , a genus that emerged more than half a billion years ago during a period live as theCambrianexplosion , a period during which an unparalleled diversity of life exploded over 20 million year ( a comparatively brief twosome of geologic time ) . the right way now , scientist are n’t indisputable whether the newly delineate species are opabiniids or unrelated lookalikes .
Science writer and evolutionary biologistStephen Jay Gouldcalled opabiniids " uncanny wonder " in his Holy Writ " Wonderful Life : The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History , " ( W. W. Norton & Company , 1989 ) and the freshly distinguish species for sure fits that verbal description — even though it ’s about 40 million long time young than the opabiniids .
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Fossil of the Ordovician animalMieridduryn bonniae. Its spiny proboscis is visible in the close-up on the right.
Like its predecessors , the newcomer , dubbed Mieridduryn bonniae , has a long trunk . The genus name comes from the Welsh words for " bramble " and " snout , " referencing the thorny backbone that line its hoselike nose , while the specie name comes from " Bonnie , " the niece of the pit owners .
A colorful and endearing Reconstruction Period by illustratorFranz Anthonybrought M. bonniae to life ; Anthony imagined the puppet as a stubby - snooted " bantam exotic prawn - worm " zipping through the Ordovician sea , he tell apart Live Science in a subject matter on Twitter .
M. bonniae measured just 0.5 inch ( 13 mm ) long , and maintain traces of its intestine hint that its lip opening night faced backwards , researchers account Nov. 15 in the journalNature Communications . It had no eyes and underneath its dead body flaps were spongy , triangular legs that had ringlike section — another feature article that has been linked to opabiniids .
The pocket-sized specimen is 0.1 in ( 3 mm ) long and alike has a proboscis , but unlike M. bonniae it also has a fanlike empennage . However , such tails are also bump in opabiniids , and wrinkle that look along this individual ’s back are similar to those in other opabiniid species , said senior study authorJoanna Wolfe , a research associate in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University . The smaller specimen could be a larval stage of M. bonniae or a dissimilar coinage altogether , so the scientists have not yet formally named it , Wolfe tell Live Science .
The new specimen are the first opabiniid - like animals to be observe in Europe , the researchers describe in the subject . But while the two dodo are somewhat like opabiniids , there are some key difference . Opabiniids typically have five middle , while M. bonniae is eyeless . And opabiniid trunk are smooth , lacking M. bonniae ’s spike . The torso flaps on M. bonniae resemble those in another Cambrian creature group , known as radiodonts , but radiodonts do n’t have legs or long snouts , Wolfe explained .
" It could be an opabiniid , " Wolfe said . On the other hand , " maybe it ’s neither an opabiniid nor a radiodont — it ’s kind of in between . "
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Opabiniids and radiodonts are upstage relative of modern arthropod — animals with exoskeletons , segment bodies and jointed limbs , such as crustaceans , insects and arachnids . Whether M. bonniae belongs to one of those two extinct groups or one that ’s still unsung , its find brings scientists a step closer to understanding how Earth ’s early squishy , legless animals evolved into arthropods with jointed legs and bodies .
" What these fossils can narrate us from an evolutionary perspective is the Holy Order of issue that happened to get from worm to fully - legged arthropod , " Wolfe said .
