New armored species of velvet worms found in China

According to a recent report published in the journal PNAS, the first sea worm fossil was found in the Chinese province of Yunnan. Further study and research on the fossil has led to the revelations that the creature Coliseum ciliosumas used to live about half a century ago. On further examination it was observed that it was also the first insect to have developed its own protective shield made out of hair. The hairy worm is expected to have walked the Earth during the Cambrian explosion which is also referred to as the period of rapid evolutionary development. The worm resembling creature is about 4 inches long and had about 30 legs – 18 of which were clawed rear legs and the remaining 12 were feathery front legs. The back of the creature was even weirder as it had a phalanx of up to 72 spikes on it. The worm lived in ancient oceans and was the first one among its class to have developed armor around it to safeguard itself from other predators. It is also believed by the scientists that this was the first worm to feed by using its feather like front legs to filter nutrients out of seawater.

The scientists have named the creature “Hairy Collin’s Monster” after the paleontologist Desmond Collins, who discovered the fossil of a similar worm-like animal back in the 1980s. Since that time, the scientists have come across five other species of Collin’s Monster. These are believed to be the ancestors of modern velvet worms.

The scientists from the University of Cambridge and the Yunnan University have come together to study the fossil and get as much information possible on it. According to Dr. Javier Ortega, a researcher at the Department of Earth Sciences in the University of Cambridge, the fossil was quite well preserved even though it was about 542 million years old. The digestive tracts and the body were entirely preserved which is why the scientists were able to study the fossil in such detail and draw so many conclusions from it. He said,” Modern velvet worms are all pretty similar in terms of their general body organization and not that exciting in terms of their lifestyle. But during the Cambrian, the distant relatives of velvet worms were stunningly diverse and came in a surprising variety of bizarre shapes and sizes.”

The study has revealed a lot about the velvet worms and the way they used to look and live in the Cambrian period. This research will be used as a benchmark for further studies by other scientists and help them solve many questions about these ancient creatures.

Image Credit: Jie Yang