A bizarre fossil of a Cambrian creature that looked like an “alien fish taco” reveals how a single group with jaws came to account for around 90 percent of all animal species on Earth
Odaraia may have used it's little spines to help bring food to its mouth. Researchers aren't sure what the trident-shaped tooth in its mouth would have been used for.Around 500 million years ago a strange creature with bulging eyes, a rudderlike tail and 30 pairs of spiny limbs extending from its cigar-sized body swam through Earth’s seas. Most of its legs couldn’t touch the ocean floor because they were tucked inside a protective shell that wrapped almost entirely around its midsection.
Now scientists have taken a closer look at one with exquisitely preserved jaws using better tools and more modern techniques. They were particularly interested in its mandible’s connection to the , when a vast array of more advanced organisms burst onto Earth’s stage around 540 million years ago.may have contributed to the modern-day dominance of creatures with mandibles, such as insects.was discovered in 1912 in what is now called the Burgess Shale fossil site in the Canadian Rocky Mountains.
With this special advantage, animals with mandibles quickly took over the planet, becoming Earth’s most diverse animal group. Particularly because of this dramatic success, scientists have long been interested in placing the mandible’s emergence on an evolutionary timeline. Thethat clearly showed the mandibles,” Izquierdo-López says. There had been some ambiguous identifications before, but the team suspected thefossil would be a better candidate.
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