Fossils reveal predatory worms that dominated the oceans more than half a billion years ago
Simon Birch
Scientists have discovered the fossils of a new group of predatory worms in North Greenland. The large worms, more than half a billion years old, may be among the earliest carnivorous animals to have colonised ancient seas, revealing a past dynasty of predators that challenges previous beliefs about the dominant carnivores of that era.
Named Timorebestia, meaning ‘terror beasts’ in Latin, the worms had fins down the sides of their bodies, distinct heads with long antennae and massive jaw structures inside their mouths. They grew to more than 30cm in length, placing them among the largest swimming animals at the time.
“Timorebestia were the giants of their day and would have been close to the top of the food chain,” says Jakob Vinther from the University of Bristol Schools of Earth Sciences and Biological Sciences and one of the scientists involved in the study. “That makes them equivalent in importance back in the Cambrian period (500 million years ago) to some of the top carnivores in modern oceans, such as sharks and seals.”
It has been established that the newly discovered worm is a distant relative of the arrow worm, still found in oceans, which feeds on microscopic zooplankton. But today’s arro
