This Fossil’s 3 Eyes Are Not Its Most Surprising Feature

More than 500 million years before Matt Groening and “The Simpsons” introduced us to Blinky, a mutated fish with an extra eye that swam in the old hole in Springfield fishing, a Pericod three -eyed predator. Once he caught their quarry, a spine covered couple or grips and a circular mouth covered with teeth would finish the work.

Known as Mosura Fentoni, this creature is a dignified addition to the strange bestiary, however, the animal’s anatomy, described Wednesday in Royal Society Open Science magazine, a revive that Mossura may not be as strange as it seems.

Mosura’s first specimen was unearthed more than a century ago by paleontologist Charles Walcott, who discovered the Burgess Shale in 1909. About the last decades, the paleontologist in the Royalio Museum in Toront Wings.

They were not fish, but it was clear that sea moths were relations with the radioles, a group of ancestral arthropods that dominated the food chains of the Cambrian. But a closer inspection of the animal would not occur until a mosure samples treasure in Marble Canyon, an outcrop of Burgess lutites.

“Having this collection of old and new specimens launched us to finally solve this animal,” said Joseph Moysiuk, a paleontologist who studied the cannon marble fossils as a doctoral student.

Dr. Moysiuk partnered with his advisor at the Royal On Ontario Museum, Jean-Bernard Caron, to examine about 60 marine moth specimens. Like other creatures of Lutitas de Burgess, many samples of mosure were well preserved, retaining characteristics such as digestive tracts and circulatory systems. Some even had traces of nerve packages in each of the three eyes of the creature.

The team photographed the samples of Mossura under polarized light to capture the detailed anatomy of crushed fossils.

A defining characteristic of living arthropods is the division of their bodies into specialized parts. For example, crushes such as crabs have different adapted appendices to perform certain functions such as food or walk. The fossils of many early arthropod ancestors, including other radiodonts, reveal relatively simple body plans. Therefore, researchers have long proposed that segmentation touches a lot of time to evolve.

Mosura has this trend. Despite measuring only 2.5 inches long, the body of the creature was divided into up to 26 segments.

“It is something we had never seen in this group of animals before,” said Dr. Moysiuk, who is now in the Manitoba Museum in Winnipeg, “not only in terms of the large number of segments, but also in terms of how they differ from other parts of the body.”

In addition to its wide swimming, the animal had a highly segmented trunk in the back of its body full of gills. According to researchers, this region resembles the abdomen -like structures used by horseshoe crabs, wood roller and some insects to breathe.

Optimizing its oxygen intake would have a vital leg for an active predator like Mosura. Researchers postulate that the animal persecuted small dams through open water. It is also very likely to have to get away from larger contemporaries such as anomalocaris two feet long or the titanokories in the form of a spaceship.

Because no other Radiodont had such a specialized trunk, the researchers placed Mosura within their own group. And instead of appointing the animal after that three -eye cartoon fish, the team was inspired by another reference of pop culture, Mothra, the winged nemesis of Godzilla. According to Dr. Moysiuk, the name is a wink both to the creature nickname and the lasting popularity of Burgess Shale Britters in Japan.

The team observed other notable features in Mossura, including dark and reflective patches within the body of the creature and swimming fins. The researchers postulate that they represent lagoons: internal cavities that have their blood from the animal after its tubel heart is expelled.

However, not all researchers are convinced that thesis brands representing fossilized bloodbags. According to Joanna Wolfe, a paleontologist from Harvard University who did not participate in the new article, could represent other characteristics, such as intestinal glands.

While some of the Mossura characteristics may live up to the scientific debate, Dr. Ir. Caron believes that the segments of the body of this old marine creature make clear their connection with living arthropods. “It’s a very strange animal,” he said, “but maybe not necessarily as strange as it looks initially.”