The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) in Toronto, Canada is set to display a very rare, very old fossil of a 450-million-year-old arthropod. Researchers reveal that this fossil, which is exceptionally well preserved, predates even the first dinosaurs, which first appeared around 240 million years ago.
The fossil is part of the ‘Tomlinsonus dimitrii’ species, part of an extinct group of arthropods. Researchers say that this newly discovered fossil is “exceptionally well preserved.”
The discovery was announced on March 24, 2022 (...) “an ornate head shield adorned with remarkable featherlike spines, possessing stilt-like limbs.”
Typically only the hard parts of similar organisms (like the bones and shells) are fossilized. However, the Tomlinsonus dimitrii group of arthropods were entirely soft-bodied and lacked any mineralized body parts.
(...) Tomlinsonus dimitrii is known to have lived in a “shallow tropical marine sea,” which covered most of the province of Ontario at the time of the species’ existence. The Tomlinsonus dimitrii species was no longer than an index finger in size. It is closely related to modern insects like spiders or scorpions.
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