Scientists unearthed a creature 500 million years old and named it after the worms from “Dune”
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In the north of the state of Utah, scientists found a fossilized sea worm 500 million years old. This ancient worm probably floated in the ocean during the Cambrian period (541-485.4 million years ago), according to LiveScience and the University of Kansas. The recently discovered species belonged to annelids. It was named Shaihuludia shurikeni after the fictional sandworms “Shai-Hulud” from the planet Arrakis in Frank Herbert’s Dune novels, which were made into a famous film. “I’m an old nerd and I was really into the Dune movies,” said researcher Rhiannon LaVine, who made the discovery. The name of the species also refers to the Japanese word “shuriken” (a Japanese throwing weapon in the shape of stars, nails, needles), because the fossilized worm had blade-like bristles. Photo: Rhiannon LaVine Researchers found the fossil during excavations in the Spence Shale on the border between northern Utah and southern Idaho. The artifact was approximately 7-8 centimeters long. “I split open one of these pieces of rock and immediately knew it was something unusual. The first thing we saw were radial blades that looked like stars or flowers,” said Rhiannon LaVine, research associate at the University of Kansas Biodiversity Institute and Museum of Natural History. At first, the researchers were not sure if these were the remains of a living creature or a strange mineral. To find out, a team of researchers analyzed the fossil using a scanning electron microscope. In a study published April 8 in the journal Historical Biology, scientists identified the specimen as a new species of annelid. “Annelids are very rare in the Cambrian of North America, and until now we only knew of one specimen from the Spence Shale,” said study lead author Julien Kimmig, a paleontologist at the Staatsmuseum in Germany. However, this is not the first time that scientists have discovered rare fossils in the Spence shale. About 90 species of Cambrian trilobites and fossils of soft-bodied creatures were found in this area. We will remind you that the remains of a whale, which may be the heaviest animal in history, were discovered earlier in Peru. Read also: Lived before dinosaurs: scientists discovered the oldest creature on Earth
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