Hairy Collins' Monster (Photo : Twitter)
A new study has identified a new species of a strange worm with spike all over its body, which lived about half a billion years ago.
Published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study stated that the newly identified worm lived in the early Cambrian period, about 518 million years ago. Paleontologists have found out that it was the very first creature on Earth to develop an armor to protect itself and to possess specialized limbs that was useful for acquiring food.
The researchers revealed that it had 72 spikes all over its body to protect them from being gobbled up. Researchers said it was measured about four inches and a bit large for a worm during that time.
Study lead researcher Javier Ortega-Hernandez, a research fellow in paleobiology at the University of Cambridge, said that the worm's clawed legs was for anchoring sponges or any other penetrable surfaces, waving its specialized limbs in the current to get nutrients in the water. He added that this technique has been widely used up until now among modern sea creatures like bamboo shrimp.
Hairy Collins' Monster was identified as an early ancestor of modern velvet worms, or onychophorans. It is a small group of squishy animals that appears like legged worms that mainly live in tropical forests around the world.
Paleontologists said it was the first time that they have observed a pattern from diverse ancestors to unvaried modern relatives among soft-bodied group like Hairy Collins' Monster, according to Phys.
The worm's name was derived from paleontologist Desmond Collins, who has discovered a similar Canadian worm-like creature fossil three decades ago.
