Latest Burgess Shale fossils Stories
April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Located in Yoho National Park, Canada's Burgess Shale fossil beds have yielded yet another major scientific discovery. Scientists from the University of Toronto, the University of Cambridge, and the University of Montreal have unearthed a strange phallus-shaped creature from the 505 million year-old rock layers. The study, published in a recent issue of Nature, confirms Spartobranchus tenuis as a member of the acorn worms group....
Of all the famous fossil localities in the world — Mongolia’s Flaming Cliffs, Tanzania’s Olduvai Gorge, Wyoming’s Green River, Germany’s Solnhöfn Quarry — perhaps none is as widely celebrated as British Columbia’s Burgess Shale. High in the Canadian Rockies, the Burgess Shale contains some of the oldest and most exquisitely detailed fossils of early life on Earth. Visiting the Burgess Shale requires some preparation — you must hire a guide and hike 22 kilometers at high...
The radula sounds like something from a horror movie – a conveyor belt lined with hundreds of rows of interlocking teeth. In fact, radulas are found in the mouths of most molluscs, from the giant squid to the garden snail. Now, a "prototype" radula found in 500-million-year-old fossils studied by University of Toronto graduate student Martin Smith, shows that the earliest radula was not a flesh-rasping terror, but a tool for humbly scooping food from the muddy sea floor. The Cambrian...
A team of researchers have discovered that a 505 million-year-old fossil is actually an ancient relative to humans. Researchers from the University of Cambridge, University of Toronto and the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) confirmed that the extinct Pikaia gracilen found in Burgess Shale fossil beds in Canada's Yoho National Park is the most primitive form of all known vertebrates, including humans. Pikaia was first described by American paleontologist Charles Doolittle Walcott in 1911 as a...
A strange tulip-shaped creature discovered in half-a-billion-year-old rocks had a feeding system unlike any other animal, researchers reported this week. Officially named Siphusauctum gregarium, the fossils, unearthed from the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale in the Canadian Rockies, reveal a peculiar creature roughly 7-8 inches long with a unique filter feeding system. The creature has a long stem with a bulbous cup-like structure -- similar to that of a tulip -- near the top that...
University of Toronto/Royal Ontario Museum scientists discover unusual "tulip" creature A bizarre creature that lived in the ocean more than 500 million years ago has emerged from the famous Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale in the Canadian Rockies. Officially named Siphusauctum gregarium, fossils reveal a tulip-shaped creature that is about the length of a dinner knife (approximately 20 centimetres or eight inches) and has a unique filter feeding system. Siphusauctum has a long stem,...
The Science Magazine EurekaMag.com publishes articles in all areas of biological science. The latest articles cover Anomalocaris which is an extinct marine predator feeding on hard-bodied animals, Biome which are are climatically and geographically similar ecosystems. The article on the Limbic System covers brain structures supporting functions including emotion, behavior, long term memory, and olfaction. Mannheim, Germany (PRWEB) December 15, 2011 The Science Magazine EurekaMag.com...
Paleontologists working on fossils from Kangaroo Island in South Australia have discovered that the Earth's first apex predator had highly acute vision that rivaled or exceeded that of most living insects and crustaceans. The researchers from South Australian Museum and University of Adelaide discovered exceptionally preserved fossil eyes of the top predator in the Cambrian ocean from over 500 million years ago: the fearsome Anomalocaris. The species is considered to be at the top of...
Newly launched bilingual exhibition is the world’s leading online Burgess Shale resource Toronto, Ontario (PRWEB) December 01, 2011 Today the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) and Parks Canada announced the launch of the Burgess Shale online exhibition, as part of the Virtual Museum of Canada. The website provides, for the first time ever, an immersive journey into the world of the bizarre prehistoric creatures that formed the foundation for all animal life on Earth half a billion years...
Researchers from the University of Saskatchewan and Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) have followed fossilized footprints to a multi-legged predator that ruled the seas of the Cambrian period about half a billion years ago. "Short of finding an animal at the end of its trackway, it's really very rare to be able to identify the producer so confidently," said Nicholas Minter, lead author of the article on the study, which appears in the latest issue of the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Minter...
