A multinational team of paleontologists headed by Dr Thomas Harvey from the University of Leicester, UK, has described a strange balloon-shaped animal that swam in the Cambrian seas about 520 million years ago.
Nidelric pugio. Image credit: Derek Siveter, Oxford University.
The new fossil belongs to a now-extinct family of bizarre, balloon-shaped animals known as Chancelloriidae.
It was uncovered from the Cambrian Series 2 Heilinpu Formation near Chengjiang, Yunnan Province, China.
“There is only one fossil of this enigmatic animal after thirty years of collecting by our Chinese colleagues at Chengjiang. It is exceptionally rare, but it shows us just how strange and varied the shapes of early animals could be,” said Dr Harvey, who is a co-author of the paper describing the discovery in the journal Scientific Reports.
He and his co-authors named the animal Nidelric pugio after the late Prof Richard Aldridge, an internationally renowned paleontologist and keen ornithologist formerly of the University of Leicester.
“We are glad the fossil can honor the name of Prof Richard Aldridge, who was a leader in this field and whose research was vital in better understanding the rich tapestry of fossils found at Chengjiang,” Dr Harvey explained.
In life Nidelric pugio was about 9 cm long and was covered in spines, but the squashed fossil resembles a bird’s nest.
“In southern China, rocks 520 million years old at Chengjiang yield a diverse array of fossils preserved with traces of their soft anatomy, including their legs, eyes, guts and even brains,” Dr Harvey said.
“Amongst the fossils are many animals that can be related to modern forms, including distant relatives of arthropods such as crabs and lobsters, and a wide variety of worms.”
“There are also several enigmatic fossils that don’t seem to fit in with anything living today, and amongst these are the chancelloriids. These fossils provide an unprecedented view of life in Earth’s ancient seas.”
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Xianguang Hou et al. 2014. A chancelloriid-like metazoan from the early Cambrian Chengjiang Lagerstätte, China. Scientific Reports 4, article number: 7340; doi: 10.1038/srep07340
