A team of scientists have identified a small marine predator that once patrolled the ocean floor and grabbed its prey with 50 spines that it deployed from its head.
Named Capinatator praetermissus, this ancient creature is roughly 10 centimetres long and represents a new species within the group of animals known as chaetognaths — small, swimming marine carnivores also known as arrow worms. They are known from about 120 species today and represent a separate group within the animal kingdom.
Capinatator is one of the largest chaetognaths known. At more than 500 million-years-old, Capinatator is thought to be a forerunner of the smaller chaetognaths that are abundant in today’s oceans, where they make up a large portion of the world’s plankton and the ocean food chain.
“This new species would have been an efficient predator and a terrifying sight to many of the smallest marine creatures that lived during that time,” said Jean-Bernard Caron, senior curator of invertebrate palaeontology at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) and associate professor in the departments of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology and Earth Sciences at the University of Toronto. Caron made the identification with Derek Briggs of Yale University based on 50 specimens from the fossil-rich Burgess Shale in British Columbia.
“This is the most significant fossil discovery about the chaetognath group of animals to date,” said Briggs, Yale’s G. Evelyn Hutchinson Professor of Geology and Geophysics and curator at the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History. Briggs is lead author of a study published today in Current Biology about this discovery.
According to the researchers, Capinatator’s head configuration is unique. With about 25 spines in each side of its head, the species has nearly double the maximum number of spines found in today’s chaetognaths. This enabled Capinatator to capture prey by closing the two halves of its grasping spines toward each other as it swam.
Briggs and Caron also determined that while it is fairly common to find evidence of chaetognath spines, fossilized chaetognath bodies are extraordinarily rare. Many of the Capinatator specimens in this study included evidence of soft tissues.
“These Burgess Shale fossil specimens preserve evidence of features such as the gut and muscles, which normally decay away, as well as the more decay-resistant grasping spines,” said Briggs. “They show that chaetognath predators evolved during the explosion of marine diversity during the Cambrian Period, and were an important component of some of the earliest marine ecosystems.”
The species name “praetermissus” means “overlooked”. The name Capinatator is derived from “capio,” which means “to grasp,” and “natator,” which means “swimmer.”
The material for this study, currently held in the ROM’s collections, was collected by the ROM under research and collecting permits provided by Parks Canada. The Burgess Shale fossil sites are located within Yoho and Kootenay National Parks. Parks Canada protects the sites and works with leading scientific researchers to expand knowledge and understanding of this key period of earth history. The Burgess Shale was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1980.
Research funding was provided by the NASA Astrobiology Institute, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, the ROM Reproductions Fund, and the Louise Hawley Stone Charitable Trust Publications Fund.
With files from Yale University and Royal Ontario Museum.
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The Burgess Shale in British Columbia — home to some of the planet’s earliest animals — is one of the world’s most important fossil sites. Read more about some of the new species discovered there that are deepening our understanding of early animal evolution