From a deep-sea creature that predates dinosaurs by 250 million years to a chameleon-like lizard in the Dominican Republic, meet six new species — some living and some extinct — that have been discovered by A&S scientists over the last five years.
Yawunik kootenayi is a segmented marine predator with two pairs of eyes and prominent grasping appendages that lived 508 million years ago — more than 250 million years before the first dinosaur. It is an ancestral representative of euarthropods, the largest group of animals, which includes butterflies, spiders and lobsters. Its multipurpose frontal appendages, both sensory and predatory, constituted an early adaptive strategy that has now been replaced by a division of tasks between multiple appendages. It was discovered by a multinational group of paleontologists including Cédric Aria, a PhD candidate in U of T’s Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology (EEB) and Jean-Bernard Caron, senior curator of invertebrate paleontology at the Royal Ontario Museum and an associate professor in EEB and Earth Sciences. Read more
Caenorhabditis macrosperma is a new species of nematode roundworm found in the Nouragues National Reserve of French Guiana in South America. As its name suggests, C. macrospermahas “giant sperm” that are more than 10 times larger than its more famous cousin, the biomedical model organism C. elegans. Nematode sperm are special: instead of swimming, the cells crawl around inside the female to find and fertilize an egg. It was described in 2014 by Professor Asher Cutter, an evolutionary geneticist in U of T’s Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology.
Mazarunia charadrica was described in 2012 by Hernán López-Fernández, an associate professor in U of T’s Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology and an ichthyology curator at the Royal Ontario Museum. Mazarunia charadrica hails from a part of the world known for unique evolutionary treasures. It is one of three new species of cichlids that are found only in the upper Mazaruni River basin of Guyana. Of the 14 families of fish that live in the basin, 11 have evolved species that don't occur anywhere else. Sadly, expanding mining efforts to extract gold from the river channel are endangering one of the most extraordinary fish faunas in South America.
These black flies are preserved in 40 million-year-old Baltic amber. They differ markedly from all other known fossil black flies, so likely represent a new genus and species. The male (left) and female (right) were probably entrapped in tree sap while mating. Douglas Currie an associate professor in U of T’s Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology (EEB) and senior curator of entomology at the Royal Ontario Museum and EEB postdoctoral fellow Mateus Pepinelli plan to formally describe and name these black flies in 2017.
The “Wendy” dino — named for legendary Canadian fossil hunter and discoverer Wendy Sloboda — has been called “one of the most striking horned dinosaurs ever found.” An early member of the Triceratops family, the elaborate horns and head ornamentation of Wendiceratops pinhornensis set it apart from its relatives. Described by David Evans — an associate professor in U of T’s Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology and a curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Royal Ontario Museum — and Michael Ryan of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. Read more
This chameleon-like lizard — a Greater Antillean anole dubbed Anolis landestoyi for Miguel Landestoy, the naturalist who first spotted and photographed it — is one of the first new anole species found in the Dominican Republic in decades. The new species was described by Assistant Professor Luke Mahler of U of T’s Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology in 2016. Read more
