Scientists find huge “swimmer’s head” dating back 500 million years

Scientists have discovered a huge and bizarre animal species that lived in the primordial seas half a billion years ago, at a time when most of the first aquatic creatures were about the size of a pea pod. The new Titanokorys gainesi, however, was a predatory arthropod that eclipsed small swimmers, measuring 19.7 inches (almost half a meter).

“Titanokorys are part of a subgroup of radiodonts, called hurdiids, characterized by an incredibly long head covered with a three-part shell that has taken on a myriad of shapes. The head is so long in relation to the body that these animals are really nothing more than swimming heads, ”said Joe Moysiuk, doctoral student in evolutionary biology at the University of Toronto, in a statement.

Moysiuk is the co-author of a study published Wednesday in the journal Royal Society Open Science which details the discovery.

“The sheer size of this animal is absolutely breathtaking,” said co-author Jean-Bernard Caron of the Royal Ontario Museum. “It is one of the largest animals from the Cambrian period ever found.”

The fossils were discovered in Kootenay National Park in the Canadian Rockies. Animals are said to have played an important and intimidating role in the seabed ecosystems that dominated the planet at the time, as the land is believed to be largely barren.

“Their limbs at the front looked like several stacked rakes and would have been very effective in bringing whatever they captured in their tiny thorns back to their mouths. The huge dorsal shell could have functioned as a plow,” Caron said. , who is also an associate professor of ecology, evolutionary biology and earth sciences at the University of Toronto and a doctorate from Moysiuk. to advise.

As if a giant swimming head with multiple limb rakes weren’t strange enough, Titanokorys also reportedly had multi-faceted eyes and what researchers describe as “a pineapple-slice-shaped mouth, lined with teeth. … And a body with a series of flaps for swimming. ”

The new species is a larger relative of another extinct animal also found in the region’s Burgess Shale deposit. The similar and most common species is called Cambroraster falcatus in honor of his head shell in the shape of a Millennium Falcon.

Researchers say the two species may have fought for prey on the seabed, which I guess makes Titanokorys the equivalent of a prehistoric Tie Fighter?

Can’t wait to see the Cambrian version of the Death Star. To date, the new fossils will be on display at the Royal Ontario Museum from December.