Scientists discover 3-eyed sea predator from 506 million years ago; it used to fly underwater
The new study was published on May 13 in the journal Royal Society Open Science.
It belonged to an ancient group of sea creatures called radiodonts, which are related to today's insects, spiders and crabs. Fossils show it had a unique body part with 16 segments and gills, helping it breathe better.
This feature is similar to parts seen in modern animals like horseshoe crabs and woodlice. Experts believe Mosura fentoni evolved in a way like these modern creatures. The discovery shows that ancient sea animals were already very diverse.
'The new species emphasises that these early arthropods were already surprisingly diverse and were adapting in a comparable way to their distant modern relatives,' CNN quoted study coauthor Dr. Jean-Bernard Caron as saying.
No living animal today looks quite like Mosura fentoni. It had jointed claws like insects or crabs. It also had a large third eye in the middle of its head.
Mosura likely swam like a stingray, using flaps to glide underwater. Its mouth looked like a pencil sharpener, lined with sharp plates.
'Although not closely related, Mosura probably swam in a similar way to a ray, undulating its multiple sets of swimming flaps up and down, like flying underwater,' said Dr Joe Moysiuk, curator of palaeontology and geology at the Manitoba Museum in Winnipeg.
'It also had a mouth shaped like a pencil sharpener and lined with rows of serrated plates, unlike any living animal,' he added.
Around the size of a human finger, it reminded scientists of a moth, so they called it a 'sea moth'. Its forked claws were unusual, possibly used to grab small prey and move it towards its sharp mouth.
'It's a bit of a puzzle how exactly it was using these to capture prey, but we think it might have seized smaller animals with the tips of the spines and passed them towards the mouth,' Moysiuk said.
Mosura lived alongside small worms and crustaceans it may have eaten. Mosura itself might have been hunted by larger sea animals like the jellyfish.
Experts say this discovery gives more clues about how ocean life worked millions of years ago. Interestingly, Mosura had an unusual trunk-like body part. It was different from what is usually seen in similar creatures.
This feature may help scientists understand how these sea animals evolved from simple, worm-like bodies to more complex forms.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Time of India
a day ago
- Time of India
Why are thousands of mosquitoes being dropped over islands in Hawaii?
If you've heard about drones dropping mosquitoes over Hawaii and done a double take—you're not alone. It sounds strange, but it's a carefully planned conservation effort. These aren't your everyday pests, either. The mosquitoes being released are part of a strategy to protect some of Hawaii's rarest birds from a disease that's pushing them toward extinction. Hawaii's birds, especially the Hawaiian honeycreepers, are in crisis. Once numbering more than 50 distinct species, only 17 remain today, and most are endangered. One of them, the 'akikiki' , was declared functionally extinct in the wild in 2023. So what's killing them? The villain is avian malaria, a deadly disease spread by mosquitoes. The tragedy is that mosquitoes aren't even native to Hawaii. They arrived in 1826 and their presence has thrown local ecosystems into chaos. These disease-carrying invaders thrive in low-elevation tropical areas, pushing the birds uphill in a desperate search for cooler, mosquito-free zones. But climate change is changing the game. 'With climate change, we are seeing warmer temperatures, and we're watching the mosquitoes move up the mountains,' Dr. Chris Farmer, Hawaii program director for the American Bird Conservancy, told CNN. 'It's a constant march of mosquitoes moving up as the temperatures allow them, and the birds getting pushed further and further up until there's no habitat left that they can survive in. ' If this cycle isn't broken, Farmer warned, 'we're going to lose our honeycreepers.' Millions of mosquitoes… on purpose Here's where the drones and lab mosquitoes come in. The ones being released aren't blood-suckers. They're lab-reared males, and males don't bite. More importantly, these particular mosquitoes carry a naturally occurring bacteria that renders them sterile when they mate with wild females. The result? No viable offspring. Fewer mosquitoes. Fewer disease vectors. Over time, as these releases continue, the population of wild mosquitoes should shrink. This method has never been used at this scale before, but researchers are betting on it. Honeycreepers aren't just beautiful, they play a vital role in Hawaii's ecology, acting as pollinators and seed dispersers. Their extinction would ripple across ecosystems already strained by invasive species and climate change. Farmer doesn't sugarcoat the stakes: mosquitoes are creating 'waves of extinction.' And if this solution works, Hawaii's forests might once again echo with the calls of birds that were on the edge of vanishing.
India.com
2 days ago
- India.com
This country isn't dropping missiles, bombs, or explosives by drones but releasing mosquitoes due to..., reason will amaze you, place is...
Due to the ongoing conflicts around the world, authorities often see the need to utilize drones for defense purposes. However, there is one country that uses drones not to drop bombs or missiles, but rather to do something very different. Well, in the lush jungles of Hawaii, a rare sight emerged in June, something few could have imagined before. How can mosquitoes help protect the environment? Drones dropped tiny biodegradable pods, each containing approximately 1,000 mosquitoes. They were not just any mosquitoes. They were genetically engineered male mosquitoes in the lab. Why is this country using drones to release mosquitoes instead of weapons? These lab-reared male mosquitoes have a certain bacterium that hinders the capability for the eggs to hatch when the females reproduce. The purpose of this new technology? To save Hawaii's endangered native birds threatened by mosquito-borne diseases. These birds are crucial pollinators and seed disperse agents. According to a CNN report, they are now in great peril. Once, Hawaii had over 50 species of honeycreepers, but now only 17 are left, with most being endangered. A tiny bird named the 'akikiki' became almost extinct in the wild last year. As per the report, less than 100 birds of 'yellow-green 'akeke'e are estimated to remain. What threat are scientists trying to fight with these mosquitoes? According to Dr. Chris Farmer, the director of the Hawaii program for the American Bird Conservancy (ABC), development and deforestation certainly have effects on the environment, but the 'existential threat' to Hawaii's birds is avian malaria, which is carried by mosquitoes. Hawaii was originally mosquito-free, and they were not found in the islands until 1826, when the whaling vessels came to the islands. The whaleships had not been aware that mosquitoes were in the water, so with the introduction of mosquitoes, then, the environment was altered. Mosquitos managed to proliferate widely. Later, it became a serious threat to the birds. Moreover, the birds lacked the evolved defenses against the diseases that mosquitoes present. In the past, the birds would escape mosquitoes by moving to higher elevations on the mountains, where the colder temperatures prevent the mosquitoes from surviving, but now the temperatures in the higher elevations are rising as a result of climate change or global warming, which allowed the mosquitoes to move to higher elevations as well. In an effort to save the birds, researchers worked on a method called IIT, or Incompatible Insect Technique. IIT involves injecting male mosquitoes with a bacterium named Wolbachia. Once a lab-bred male mates with a wild female, her eggs will not hatch. Because females can't lay eggs that hatch, the population will start to slowly decline. The American Bird Conservancy and an organization called 'Birds, Not Mosquitoes', began researching this method in 2016. Millions of mosquitoes were reared in a laboratory in California and then released in Maui and Kauai in Hawaii. Roughly 1 million mosquitoes are being released each week now. 'Right now, we're releasing 500,000 mosquitoes a week on Maui and 500,000 mosquitoes a week on Kauai,' Dr. Chris Farmer, the director of the Hawaii program for the American Bird Conservancy (ABC), was quoted as saying to CNN.
NDTV
4 days ago
- NDTV
Earth Is Spinning Faster, Says Study. This Could Force A Global Time Reset
In a rare and unprecedented move, scientists and world timekeepers are considering reducing one second from Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) as Earth's rotation speeds up. The most recent data indicates that Earth's rotation is somewhat faster this summer, with some days measuring more than a millisecond shorter than a typical 24-hour period, CNN reported. Even the slightest change in the planet's rotation over time can cause sensitive systems, such as satellites, GPS, and international communications networks, to malfunction. This hypothetical "negative leap second" will be the first in history. The International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service and the US Naval Observatory declared that July 10 was the shortest day of the year so far, lasting 1.36 milliseconds less than 24 hours, as per Time And Date. Earth's rotation has been progressively slowing down for decades as a result of the moon's tidal friction. Recent astronomical data and atomic clock observations, however, indicate that the Earth is currently spinning faster than it did previously. The earth takes 24 hours, or an average of 86,400 seconds, to complete one full rotation on its axis, which is equivalent to a day. In reality, however, each rotation is somewhat erratic because of several variables, including the moon's gravitational pull and the impact of the Earth's liquid core. What is the concern now? The official timekeepers in the world may have to take an unprecedented step if this pace keeps up; deduct one complete second from the world time. Since 1972, so-called "leap seconds" have been added 27 times to compensate for Earth's rather erratic rotation. However, there has never been the use of a negative "leap second," which will essentially accelerate the UTC by one second. There is now a 40 per cent likelihood that it will occur by 2035, according to experts. Why is the Earth spinning faster? The causes of Earth's fluctuating rotation are multifaceted. Seasonal fluctuations in the atmosphere, the moon's gravitational influence, and even the shifting motion of the Earth's molten core all contribute. The moon and tides cause the shortest-term variations in Earth's rotation, according to experts, making it spin faster when the satellite is at higher or lower altitudes and slower when it is above the equator. Another factor is climate change. Greenland and Antarctica's melting ice redistributes mass around the Earth, slowing its rotation and possibly preserving time before a global time reset becomes inevitable. Research geophysicist Duncan Agnew of the University of California, San Diego, compared it to observing the stock market, and said, "There are long-term trends, and then there are peaks and falls."
