‘Ovation worm’: Bizarre new Burgess Shale species detailed in journal
The worm stands upright and raises its spindled arms above its head as if giving a hearty ovation.
Researchers with the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto detailed the 500-million-year-old critter for the first time in a study that is to be published Tuesday in the journal BMC Evolutionary Biology.
The bizarre creature, no bigger than a thumb, lived under water in a spot that is today a shale-strewn mountain ridge in British Columbia’s Yoho National Park.
It has been dubbed Ovatiovermis cribratus, from the Latin “ovatio” meaning ovation and “vermis” meaning worm. Cribratus comes from “sieve” — the study’s authors believe the worm used its spiky forelimbs to comb through Cambrian waters for food particles.