Paleontologists have discovered an arthropod that looks like it came out of a sci-fi movie from an intact fossil in Canada.

According to a description in the journal Paleontology, the creature named Tomlinsonus Dimitri lived during the Ordovician period about 450 million years ago, belonging to a completely new species in the group of prehistoric arthropods Marrellomorph.

Simulation of the newly discovered species Tomlinsonus Dimitri. Photo: Royal Ontario Museum

Tomlinson Dimitri is only 6 cm long and can fit in the palm of a human hand. It has an ornate head shield with two curved horns covered with feather-like spikes. The creature’s multi-segmented body has both insect-like and spider-like features.

“Beneath its head is a pair of extremely long limbs. These are most likely used to detect obstacles on the seafloor. Tomlinson appears to be blind because it has no eyes,” said lead author Joseph Moysiuk of the study. , a doctoral student in ecology and evolutionary biology at the Canada’s University of Toronto, said.

The fossil Tomlinsonus Dimitri is preserved almost intact. Photo: Royal Ontario Museum

Tomlinson Dimitri is a mollusk, making the new discovery even more astonishing. The creature’s fossils unearthed at the Paleo Pompeii quarry near the shores of Lake Simcoe in Ontario are in “exceptionally good” condition.

“We didn’t expect to find a mollusk at this site. When we think of fossils, we usually think of things like bones and hard shells. Preservation of soft tissue is rare, having only been recorded at this site. several places around the world,” Moysiuk added.

The Simcoe Lake area was once underwater and was part of the shallow tropical sea that covered much of what is now Canada. Over millions of years, the seabed was gradually buried by storm-induced sediments.

The team hopes the new discovery will help fill a gap in the fossil record of prehistoric arthropods. The specimen Tomlinsonus Dimitri is now in the collection of the Royal Ontario Museum and is on display in the Willner Madge room as part of an exhibition entitled “Dawn of Life”.