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Mosura Fentoni
- 02 Jun 2025
- 1 min read
Mosura fentoni, a Cambrian-era (541 million to 485.4 million years ago) sea creature from Canada’s Burgess Shale, challenges existing views on arthropod evolution with its advanced swimming and respiratory adaptations, hinting at the rise of modern insects and crustaceans.
- About: Mosura fentoni is a small but highly specialized radiodont, a primitive relative of modern arthropods (insects, crabs, spiders).
- Anatomy: It had a segmented body with a short neck, six paddle-shaped flaps for swimming, and a posterotrunk featuring gills for respiration.
- The posterotrunk functioned as a specialized respiratory tagma, resembling the oxygen-collecting tails of horseshoe crabs.
- It shows early segment specialization, crucial for arthropod diversity.
- Radiodonts: Radiodonts were ancient marine predators from the Cambrian period and are early relatives of arthropods like insects and crabs, though not their direct ancestors.
- Burgess Shale is a renowned fossil site in Canada dating to the Cambrian period.
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