Earth’s familiar animal population began to form during the Cambrian period. It was then that the main groups of organisms appeared, including the first predators. The new article is devoted to Timorebestia koprii, a newly described species of carnivore discovered in Greenland. Unlike other carnivores of the Cambrian period, timorebestia is not an arthropod, it is large and one of the oldest representatives of the bristle-jaw type.

Life on Earth has existed almost as long as our planet itself: just under four billion years. However, not all eras and periods of biosphere history can be described in the same detail. Earth’s earliest stages (including the long Proterozoic period, when Earth remained a “germ planet” with individual multicellular organisms) account for only a few and poorly preserved fossils.

Everything changed with the beginning of the Paleozoic era and its first period, the Cambrian, 539 million years ago. Then the biodiversity of the oceans increased dramatically, many animals acquired skeletons (well preserved in fossilized form), and the first predators appeared. Before him, almost no one thought about eating other animals. But the heads themselves were not in order.

Cambrian predators had a very strange appearance; such as anomalocaris (literally “abnormal shrimp”), which has two curved tentacles close to a large, round mouth. Or Opabinia, which has five eyes and a long prehensile body. Paleontologists attribute these to strange early arthropods, with some sizes approaching a meter long.

However, the first arthropods appeared 529-521 million years ago, that is, 10-20 million years after the beginning of the Cambrian. new article for Science Developments It is dedicated to an older group of animals, such as the bristle-jawed species or sea darters (Chaetognatha), which appeared at the dawn of the Cambrian at least 538 million years ago. The authors described a new species and genus of bristle jaws: Timorbestia copriiIts remains were discovered in the camp of the Sirius-Passet deposit, in northern Greenland.

The huge island in those distant times was completely different: without ice and much warmer. It was also located in the Southern Hemisphere.

Timorbestia reminded scientists Amiskwia sagittiformis – another Cambrian organism that was close in structure and most likely related to modern bristle jaws such as Saggita. These sea darters are small planktonic invertebrates ranging in size from a few millimeters to 12 centimeters. Celadonians swim by bending their bodies up and down and eat smaller planktonic organisms: ciliates, microscopic crustaceans, etc. For this, bristle jaws use special bristles close to the mouth, hence their name.

Two distant relatives of these creatures from the Cambrian: Timorbestia And Amiskwia – combine the general plan of the body structure with the nektonic lifestyle, that is, active swimming in the water column. Other similarities include the presence of lateral and caudal fins, a well-developed head with long antennae (“antennae”) and the structure of the oral apparatus.

For Cambrian animal T. coprii had significant dimensions – individual specimens reached almost 30 centimeters in length. It was thought that the fossil also contained a ganglion or nerve node located on the abdominal side. The ganglion is well protected due to the unique mechanism of secondary phosphate mineralization (phosphatization). Such an organ is characteristic of hair-jawed animals, which allows us to safely attribute timorebestia to this type of animal. At the same time, it cannot be said that he is the ancestor of today’s sea shooters. scientists took T. coprii to a dead end called the root group type (root group).

The authors of the study believe that the animal they described led a predatory lifestyle, which explains the large antennae and complex arrangement of fins. In the digestive tract of one of the most fossilized specimens T. coprii several arthropods have been found with shells of the species Isoxys volucris.

It turns out that Timorbestia was one of the largest predators of the Cambrian period and “climbed” to the top of the food chain before arthropods such as Anomalocaris. It makes a difference Timorbestia coprii from their modern relatives – sea throwers who were forced to make do with modest production and often found themselves eaten, for example, by fish.