by Paleontologists discovered remarkable fossils in the Grand Canyon, which reveal new details about the appearance of a complex life half a billion years ago.
The newly discovered remains of fauna from the region suggest that in a “Goldillocks zone” between hard extreme extremes, they offered ideal conditions for life and diversification elsewhere. This evolutionary opportunity led to a variety of early animals, including Oddballs with special adjustments to survival, according to new research.
During the Cambrian explosion, which played in the earth’s coastal waters about 540 million years ago, most animal body types that exist today are created in a relatively short time, scientists believe.
At that time, the Grand Canyon was closer to the equator, and the region was covered by a warm, flat sea, the tormenting life of swarming-aquatic beings that resembled modern shrimp, pill bugs and snails, the new paths to exploit the abundant resources.
The researchers turned to the layers of sediment of the Grand Canyon in order to unlock secrets of this decisive moment in the history of life and dig in the scaly, clay-like slate of the bright angel formation, in which most fossils of the canyon canyon were found in the canyon.
The team of studies expected that he was mainly regained the petrified remains of hard shook invertebrates that are typical of the region. Instead, the team discovered something unusual: rocks with well -preserved inner fragments of tiny soft molluses, crustaceans and priapulids, also known as penis worms.
“With such fossils we can better study your morphology, your appearance and lifestyle in a much greater solution, which is not possible with the Shelly parts” Science progress. “It is a new kind of window about the Cambrian life in the Grand Canyon.”
With high microscopes, the team was able to examine innovations such as miniature chains of teeth from rock-line molluses and hairy limbs and molars of filter nutrition crusts, which was a rare insight into the biologically complex species that were adapted and founded.
The “Goldillocks Zone” for innovation
There was simplicity for most 4 billion-year history of the planet.
One cell microbes remained stationary on the sea floor and bloomed on chemical compounds such as carbon dioxide and sulfur molecules to reduce food. What has changed?
Scientists are still discussing what the Cambrian explosion drives, but the most popular theory is slowly increasing in the earth’s atmosphere about 550 million years ago, said Erik Sperling, Associate Professor of Earth and Planetary at Stanford University.
Oxygen offered a much more efficient way to metabolize food, and gave animals more energy for mobilizing and hunting for prey, Sperling proposed that was not involved in the new study.
“The (origin of) predators started this escalatory race, and then we basically did the explosion of different shops,” said Sperling.
During the Cambrian, the flat sea, which covered the Grand Canyon, was particularly oxygen -rich thanks to its perfect “Goldillocks” depth, said Mussini, a doctoral student at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. The ecosystem ranged from 40 to 50 meters (approx. 130 to 165 feet) and was undisturbed by the constant waves of the coast, which switched to sediments, and the sunlight could still reach photosynthetic plants on the sea floor that could deliver oxygen.
The abundance of food and favorable environmental conditions meant that animals could take more evolutionary risks to be ahead of their competition, said Mussini.
“In a rather resource -drawn environment, animals cannot afford to make this type of physiological investment,” said Mussini in a press release from the University of Cambridge. “It has certain parallels to the economy: investing and risks in times of abundance; save and be conservative in times of scarcity.”
Many fossil finds with soft-body fossils come from regions with hard environments such as Canada’s Burgess Shale Formation and China’s Maotianshan slate, noticed Susannah Porter, professor of geosciences at the University of California in Santa Barbara, which was not involved in the study.
“It is not unlike if paleontologists only had large fossil records from Antarctic in the future, where hard cold environments forced people to adapt.” We have the opportunity to see different types of evolutionary pressure that is not that is really cold, there is not much water. “
The researchers revealed the inner parts of the Kambrische fauna, like this star of the crustaceans. – MUSTSINI et al.
Strange adjustments of Cambrian animals
While some of the feeding mechanisms that have been uncovered in the Grand Canyon fossils are still today, others are much more strange.
Among the damn: penis worms that turned their mouth outwards and unveiled a neck lined with hairy teeth.
The worms, which are also known as cactus worms, are largely extinct today, but were widespread during the Cambrium. The petrified worm found in the Grand Canyon is a previously unknown species.
Due to its relatively large size -about 3.9 inches (10 centimeters) and different teeth, it was called Kraytdraco Spectatus after the fictional Krayt dragon from the Star Wars Universum, said Mussini. This special penis worm seems to have had a gradient of hundreds of branched teeth in order to sweep food into their extendable mouth.
“It is a bit difficult to understand how exactly it fed,” said Mussini. “But it was likely that it ate rubble on the sea floor, scratched it away with some of the most robust teeth and then used these other more sensitive teeth to filter and hold them in this long, tube -like mouth.”
Rows of tiny molars, stars and real limbs that once were crustaceans were also among the results that go back every 507 to 50 million years. Similar to today’s brine shrimp, the crustaceans used these fine-haired limbs to capture floating food from the water and put them in their mouths where the molars would ground the particles, said Mussini. Among the molars, the researchers even found a few unfortunate plankton.
Other creatures that resemble their modern colleagues were slogging -like mollusks. The fossils showed teeth chains that probably helped them to scrape away algae or bacteria along the sea floor.
“There are different components for each of these animals, but most of what we have found directly refers to the way these animals process their food, which is one of the most exciting parts because it tells us a lot about their lifestyle and as a result of their ecological effects,” said Mussini.
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