Harvard has revealed the type of nutrition of an unusual animal that lived 500 million years ago

Hallucigenia sparsa is one of the most unusual animals that occurred more than 500 million years ago. Although its anatomy has been studied much better to date, the issue of nutrition has long remained a mystery due to the lack of traces of food in the remains. This was reported by bioRxiv magazine with reference to scientists from Harvard University.

Javier Ortega-Hernandez, associate professor of the Department of Organismal and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, curator of the Department of Invertebrate Paleontology at the Museum of Comparative Zoology, and an employee of the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, analyzed and found that several small hallucigenia specimens simultaneously fed on the carcass of a ctenophora. The animal lacked grasping, cutting, or piercing mouth structures, indicating a sucking type of diet suitable for eating soft jelly-like organisms.

Morphological analysis revealed the similarity of the species to modern marine spiders (pycnogonids). Structurally, they have an elongated anterior part of the body with a terminal mouth opening and expanded chambers of the anterior intestine lined with sclerotized denticles. These signs confirm that suckling was an ancient strategy in the onychophore stem group.

The authors conclude that small hallucigenia played an important trophic role in Cambrian bottom ecosystems, participating in the decomposition of soft-bodied corpses and the nutrient cycle. This discovery helps to better understand the ecological complexity of early marine communities and how organisms of the Cambrian period fed.

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Izvestia has prepared the top 5 interesting science news for the week

On January 15, Communications Earth & Environment (CEE) magazine reported the discovery of mummified cheetahs in caves in northern Saudi Arabia. Scientists have found out that before the local extinction, at least two subspecies of predator lived on the Arabian Peninsula — the Asian cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus venaticus) and the Northwest African (Acinonyx jubatus hecki)

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