New species of rare ancient ’worm’ discovered in fossil hotspot

Scientists have discovered a new species of lobopodian, an ancient relative of modern-day velvet worms, in 430 million-years-old Silurian rocks in Herefordshire, UK. The team, comprising researchers from the universities of Oxford, Yale, Leicester and Manchester, and Imperial College London, has been able to three-dimensionally reconstruct the exceptionally well-preserved fossil using digital technology. The research is reported in the Royal Society journal Open Science . First author Derek Siveter, Professor Emeritus of Earth Sciences at Oxford University and Honorary Research Associate at Oxford University Museum of Natural History, said: 'Lobopodians are extremely rare in the fossil record, except in the Cambrian Period. Worm-like creatures with legs, they are an ancestral marine relative of modern-day velvet worms, or onychophorans - predators that live in vegetation, mainly in southern latitudes. 'This new lobopodian, which we have named Thanahita distos, was discovered during fieldwork in an area of Silurian rocks in Herefordshire. It is the first lobopodian to be formally described from rocks of Silurian age worldwide; exceptionally, it is fully three-dimensionally preserved, and it represents one of only eight known three-dimensionally preserved lobopodian or onychophoran fossil specimens.