Scientists: identify the new sea worm.

Описание: Scientists: identify the new sea worm.

Long before the dinosaurs roamed the Earth, a strange creature with a fly-like head of Venus swam in the seas. Scientists have discovered fossils of a tiny faceless prehistoric sea worm with 50 spines protruding from its head. When the unsuspecting critter came too close, his jaw-like spines broke and dinner was served. The new creature called Capinatator praetermissus is so different that scientists fossils represent not only a new species, but a new genus a larger group of life as well. It was only 4 inches long and its thorns were about a third of an inch long. It feast on smaller plankton and shrimp creatures.

It is an ancestor of a group of marine arrowworms called chaetognatha which are abundant in the world's oceans. Derek Briggs, of Yale University, who led a team that discovered the fossil find in two national parks in British Columbia, Canada, showed a larger prehistoric version with more thorns in its facial arsenal, but without the specialized teeth of Their descendants. Spines are like miniature hooks, although more gently curved, were rigid rather than flexible. It is difficult because there are so many thorns in the fossil example but presumably so armed was a successful predator.