Oldest relative of ragworms and earthworms discovered

Scientists at the Universities of Oxford, Exeter, Yunnan and Bristol and have discovered the oldest fossil of the group of animals that contains earthworms, leeches, ragworms and lugworms. This discovery pushes the origin of living groups of these worms (polychaetes) back tens of millions of years, demonstrating that they played an important part in the earliest animal ecosystems. The fossil specimens are approximately 514 million years old and come from eastern Yunnan Province in China, originating from a geological time known as the early Cambrian. These rocks provide crucial fossil evidence of the dawn of early animal life, known as the "Cambrian Explosion". They are extraordinary because they preserve the soft parts of organisms that do not usually survive fossilisation, such as cuticles (skin) and guts as well as limbs and other appendages. Despite the remarkable preservation of fossils in these rocks, annelid worms are very rare and have not previously been discovered there. In today's Nature paper , an international team of scientists, co-led by Dr. Luke Parry from the Department of Earth Sciences at Oxford University, describe a previously unknown species called Dannychaeta tucolus.