What is the new 500-million-year-old sea worm found? Let’s dig into the secrets

A paleontologist from the University of Kansas explored a specific area recently popular for its fossils. Through the exploration, a never-found-before ancient sea worm was unearthed. The paleontologist, Rhiannon LaVine named it Shaihuludia shurikeni. At the very same site, another interesting fossil had been discovered, named the Burgessochaeta.

The place where the excavations were held is called the “Spence Shale Lagerstatte”, and is actually a treasure for fossils. The sea worm found was something not discovered before by science, and thus this discovery is worth all the attention and appreciation.

When Rhiannon LaVine got to know about the discovery, she was actually a member of the team camping and conducting fieldwork in the High Creek region of Spence Shale. Rhiannon LaVine is a research associate working with the KU Biodiversity Institute and Natural History Museum.

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The Spence Shale

A magnificent place. Spence Shale is a top favorite of researchers, as they find a haven of interesting discoveries and secrets of the planet. Ever since the 1900s, the Spence Shale has been popular for being abundant in species. The place had around 90 Cambrian trilobite species and fossils.

Let’s talk about the discovery

The proud researcher, LaVine, expressed through her statement that “One of the last times we were out there, I split open one of these pieces of rock and instantly knew it was something that wasn’t typical.”

The very first things the researchers spotted were radial blades. These somewhat appeared like stars to the researcher. “The first thing we see are these radial blades that look like stars or flowers. Immediately, I showed it to (lead author) Julian Kimmig. He was perplexed. He’s said, ‘I’ve never seen anything like that.’ We were out with Paul Jamison, a local who’s been working the site for years — and if there’s something in there that somebody’s seen, he’s seen it. But he hadn’t seen it,” expresses the researcher.

First, LaVine transported the fossil specimen to the KU Biodiversity Institute, and then she talked to her colleagues regarding the interesting fossil and its mystery.

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The investigation

In order to understand the mystery, LaVine grouped with her colleagues at the University of Missouri in order to carry out scanning electron microscopy, along with energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry on the discovered fossil.

The researcher expressed, “We mainly wanted to make sure that this was a biological thing because it’s possible it could have just been some weird mineral growth with the way it looked.”

Classification and naming

Eventually, the fossil got classified by LaVine and her colleagues. The fossil had been classified as an unknown annelid species. It is actually a phylum of around 21,000 “segmented worm” species present in freshwater, marine, and terrestrial environments all over the globe.

The paleontologist, LaVine named the species as Shaihuludia shurikeni. Why this name? Well, the Shai- Hulud is actually the indigenous name given to the worms on Arrakis in the “Dune” books written by Frank Herbert. Additionally, “Shuriken” is the Japanese term for throwing star.

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