Paleontologists discover 'moth-like' predator that lived 506 million years ago

Paleontologists recently discovered a 506-million-year-old "moth-like" predator that lurked in prehistoric Canada.

In a press release from the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), officials identified the creature as Mosura fentoni, an extinct arthropod, as news agencies including SWNS reported. (See the video at the top of this article.) 

The museum reported that most of the Mosura fossils were collected by ROM paleontologists at Raymond Quarry in Yoho National Park in British Columbia. 

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Most were found between 1975 and 2022.

"Mosura fentoni was about the size of your index finger and had three eyes, spiny jointed claws, a circular mouth lined with teeth and a body with swimming flaps along its sides," the museum noted. 

"These traits show it to be part of an extinct group known as the radiodonts, which also included the famous Anomalocaris canadensis, a meter-long predator that shared the waters with Mosura."

What makes the discovery so interesting to researchers is that Mosura had an abdomen-like body region made up of multiple segments at its back end - which had not been previously observed in any radiodonts.

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Joe Moysiuk, a curator of paleontology and geology at the Manitoba Museum, said Mosura had 16 of these segments, all lined with gills.

"This is a neat example of evolutionary convergence with modern groups, like horseshoe crabs, woodlice and insects, which share a batch of segments bearing respiratory organs at the rear of the body," Moysiuk described.

The museum reported that the species has been nicknamed the "sea-moth" by field collectors based on its moth-like attributes.

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"This inspired its scientific name, which references the fictional Japanese kaiju also known as Mothra. Only distantly related to real moths - as well as spiders, crabs, and millipedes - Mosura belongs on a much deeper branch in the evolutionary tree of these animals, collectively known as arthropods," the statement added.

Interestingly, the fossils show details of Mosura's internal anatomy - including its nervous system, circulatory system, and digestive tract. 

Instead of arteries and veins, Mosura's heart pumped blood into large internal body cavities called lacunae.

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ROM curator Jean-Bernard Caron said that "few fossil sites in the world offer this level of insight into soft internal anatomy."

"We can see traces representing bundles of nerves in the eyes that would have been involved in image processing, just like in living arthropods," the expert added. 

"The details are astounding."