Paleontologists from National Taiwan University believe that the 6.5-foot-long burrow was once the habitat of a worm-like predator that would have floated from the sea floor to ambush marine creatures and pull them alive to their lair.

Experts working in northeastern Taiwan have reconstructed large L-shaped burrows dating back up to 23 million years from sea floor layers using archaeological excavations – geological features, such as track markings, burrows and plant root hollows in the rocks, that experts use to extract Conclusions about the behavior of ancient creatures.

Using 319 samples, experts reconstruct the fossil of A. Cache – Dubbed The Beautiful Pennichnus! They are 6.5 feet long and about an inch in diameter, and morphological evidence indicates that the tunnels were home to giant marine worms, such as the modern bobbit.

The bobbit worm, or sand striker (Eunice aphroditois), is a bristly-haired waterworm 4 inches to 10 feet long that lives in burrows it creates at the ocean floor. The Bobbitt worm takes its name from Lorena and John Wayne Bobbitt The case where Lorena cut the penis of her husband John Wayne with a kitchen knife.

Mainly living in the Pacific Ocean, bobti worms hide in long, narrow burrows on the sea floor and push upwards to grab unwanted fish, large slugs and other worms, before they are pulled, while still alive, into their dens.

In the study published in the journal Scientific Reports, The report’s authors note that the retreat of an ancient worm and its prey in sediments may have caused “feather-like” structures preserved in Pennichnus shapes.
Clockwise from top left: top of the Pinnatus terrier;  Bobbitt worm (image via Chotinon Mora);  Bobbitt worm terrier.  Diagrammatic view of the top of a Pennichnus terrier;  Vertical section of the lower part of the Pinnatus terrier.

They identified a high concentration of iron at the top of the burrow, and believed the worm could secrete mucus to reinforce the burrow wall.

READ  Game of Thrones terrible wolves were real. We now know why they became extinct

“We hypothesize that about 20 million years ago, on the southeastern frontier of the Eurasian continent, ancient Bobbitt worms colonized the sea floor waiting in ambush for a passing meal,” the report’s authors wrote.

“When the prey approached a worm, it exploded from its burrow, grabbing the prey and dragging it down into the sediments. Below the sea floor, the prey stumbled desperate to flee, causing further turbulence of sediments around the burrow hole,” they described.

답글 남기기

이메일 주소는 공개되지 않습니다. 필수 필드는 *로 표시됩니다

You May Also Like

새로운 연구에 따르면 20,000 년 전에 코로나 바이러스의 전염병이 동아시아를 강타했습니다.

목요일 과학 저널 Current Biology에 발표 된 연구에 따르면 호주와 미국의 연구팀이…

제임스 웹 망원경 이미지는 펭귄과 알 은하계를 더 자세히 보여줍니다.

과학자들은 이제 특정 유형의 펭귄의 꼬리 깃털에 대해 그 어느 때보다 더…

NASA, SpaceX, Ian 연기 후 Crew 5 우주비행사 발사 목표 10월 5일

Crew-5 우주인이 발사되기 전에 플로리다 케네디 우주 센터에서 SpaceX Falcon 9 로켓과…

천왕성의 이미지는 NASA의 James Webb 망원경이 허블 망원경을 능가하는 방법을 보여줍니다.

각각 2022년과 2023년에 허블 우주 망원경(왼쪽)과 JWST(오른쪽)가 찍은 천왕성의 이미지. 천왕성의 고리는…