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palaeontology·Palaeontology 🦖byGreyShuck

'Giant' predator worms more than half a billion years old discovered in North Greenland

Fossils of a new group of animal predators have been located in the Early Cambrian Sirius Passet fossil locality in North Greenland. These large worms may be some of the earliest carnivorous animals to have colonized the water column more than 518 million years ago, revealing a past dynasty of predators that scientists didn't know existed.

The new fossil animals have been named Timorebestia, meaning 'terror beasts' in Latin. Adorned with fins down the sides of their body, a distinct head with long antennae, massive jaw structures inside their mouth, and growing to more than 30cm in length, these were some of the largest swimming animals in the Early Cambrian times.

'Giant' predator worms more than half a billion years old discovered in North Greenlandhttps://phys.org/news/2024-01-giant-predator-worms-billion-years.htmlOpen linkView original on feddit.uk
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24 replies

triclops6reply
lemmy.ca

3rd day of 2024 and we're already finding out we're on Dune

9
ikapozreply
sh.itjust.works

My disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined.

13

Yeah. The quotes around 'giant' in the title aren't rated for carrying this much euphemism. They're going to collapse under the strain of our disappointment. I was promsied giant arctic worms, darn it. That's a CR13 monster in D&D!

8
BOFHreply

Compounded by the lack of pictures in this article.

3
kbin.social

Nah, those are just Goa'uld from one of the many time travel episodes.

19
kbin.social

At 30cm in length, maybe on ant scale (ngl, I'd probably watch that movie lol)

6

Fossils.

Fossils of a half-billion year old predator worm.

Not. Y'know. C'thulhu's Viking cousins.

10

"However, Timorebestia is a distant, but close, relative of living arrow worms, or chaetognaths.

Just say closest lmao

3

And those bitches are probably going to wake up when the tundra thaws!

1

It's called a tim'rous beastie? Damn it's a few weeks early for Burns' night

1

You reached the end