Original Coverage: Half-a-billion-year-old 3-eyed sea creature dubbed ‘Mosura’ breathed through big gills on its butt

Mosura fentoni lived half a billion years ago in the Canadian Rockies. Its fossils are so well preserved that they include intricate details of the species’ biology. The fossils suggest that these early arthropods were more diverse than previously thought. Mothra was only about the size of a human finger, but represents a huge and rare find for scientists.”Museum collections, old and new, are a bottomless treasure trove of information about the past,” study lead author Joe Moysiuk said in a statement. “If you think you’ve seen it all before, you just need to open up a museum drawer,” he said of fossil finds. “Very few fossil sites in the world offer this level of insight into soft internal anatomy,” study co-author Jean-Bernard Caron said in the statement.”Radiodonts were the first group of arthropod group to be comparable in a reproductive way,” Caron added. “The new species emphasizes that theseEarly arthropoda were already adapting to a very active lifestyle”

Source: Livescience.com  |  Read full article