Ancient Selkirkia Worms, Resembling Sandworms from “Dune,” Found to Have Lived Longer Than Previously Thought
In a discovery that seems straight out of a science fiction novel, researchers have uncovered evidence that ancient Selkirkia worms, with their head covered in rows of curved spines, persisted much longer than previously believed. These fearsome predators, measuring only an inch or two in length, were some of the most common predators on the seafloor during the Cambrian Explosion more than 500 million years ago.
Dr. Karma Nanglu and his team from Harvard University described a new species of Selkirkia worm in a paper published in the journal Biology Letters. This new species, named tsering, lived 25 million years after this group of tube-dwelling worms was thought to have gone extinct.
The fossils of these tubular worms were discovered in Morocco’s Fezouata Formation, a deposit dating back to the Early Ordovician period. The researchers found that these worms lived in environments closer to the South Pole, challenging previous assumptions about their distribution.
According to paleontologist Jean-Bernard Caron from the Royal Ontario Museum, this discovery highlights that some Cambrian creatures were able to persist even as diversity exploded in the Ordovician era. The new species of Selkirkia worm, with its unchanged morphology compared to its Cambrian counterpart, suggests that these creatures experienced little evolutionary change over the 40 million years they spent devouring other seafloor inhabitants.
While the tube-based body form of Selkirkia worms eventually went out of evolutionary style among closely related worms, this new finding proves that these creatures successfully stuck around longer than many of the Cambrian’s bizarre wonders. Dr. Nanglu believes that sometimes reality is indeed stranger than fiction, even when it comes to big screen look-alikes.
The discovery of these ancient Selkirkia worms sheds light on the fascinating world of prehistoric predators and challenges our understanding of evolution and extinction. It serves as a reminder that the natural world is full of surprises, even in creatures that have long been extinct.
