Ancient predator found at B.C.’s Burgess Shale
Researchers at the Royal Ontario Museum and University of Toronto have uncovered fossils of a large predatory species in 506 million-year-old rocks in the B.C. Rockies.
The species, described in a study published Tuesday in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, is named Cambroraster falcatus.
“This animal has this really unique looking frontal carapace, or shield-like structure, covering its head,” said Joseph Moysiuk, a PhD student at the University of Toronto and lead author of the study.
“It’s like nothing we had seen before. But we actually nicknamed it in the field: the spaceship.”
The species, the earliest known relative of insects, crabs and spiders, was found at the Burgess Shale site near Marble Canyon in Kootenay National Park.
“What makes this finding remarkable is that we found hundreds of specimens, including all of the different parts of its body, so we are able to piece back together this organism in pretty remarkable detail,” Moysiuk said.
His supervisor, Jean-Bernard Caron, said it took some time to put all the pieces together.
“It was like a jigsaw puzzle or a Lego box, but you don’t have the instructions,” said Caron, a curator at the Royal Ontario Museum and an assistant professor at the university.
In addition to its large head, the animal has a small body with flaps on the sides.
“It looks a bit ridiculous in some ways,” Caron said.
Researchers believe large claws on the front of its body, which look like rakes, were used to feed on everything from worms to small larvae living between sediment grains in the mud.
Caron said they expect the animal lived at the bottom of the sea. Most animals at the time were smaller than a couple of centimetres, but he said the new species was up to 30 cm long.