Kootenayscolex

Kootenayscolex, the bristle-headed worm, is a 500 million year old fossil species of proto-annelid resembling a bristle worm, found in British Columbia in 2012. It appears to have been an aquatic worm with about 56 bristles on each of up to 25 segments, serving to propel it through mud or water.

Kootenayscolex
Temporal range: Cambrian
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: incertae sedis
Genus: โ€ Kootenayscolex

The one known species in the genus, Kootenayscolex barbarensis, is thought to exhibit primitive traits that show the foundation for the evolution of modern annelids, like "head" segment that still has traits of simply being another generic body segment, for example having bristles poking out of it, which no modern annelid shares.[1]

Description

The name of this worm Kootenascolex, means "worm from Kootenay National Park" (in British Columbia, where its fossils were found) and barbarensis is from Barbara Polk Milstein, a researcher on the burgess shale fossils.[2] The hundreds of imprints of this worm found so far are each no more than one inch long. They appear to have been bottom feeders, sifting sedment from the sea/lake floor in their mouths.[3]

References
  1. "New 508-million-year-old bristle worm species from British Columbia's Burgess Shale wiggles into evolutionary history". phys.org. Retrieved 2018-01-22.
  2. "More than 500 fossils of new ancient worm species found in B.C. - Technology & Science - CBC News". cbc.ca. Retrieved 2018-01-22.
  3. "508-Million-Year-Old Bristly Worm Helps Solve an Evolutionary Puzzle". Tinsera. Archived from the original on 2018-01-23. Retrieved 2018-01-22.
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