Paleontologists Find Huge 500-million-year-old Fossil Species in Canadian Rockies

Paleontologists Find Huge 500-million-year-old Fossil Species in Canadian Rockies

As my colleague Mike LaChance is away, enjoying a fun vacation and a much needed break from the news cycle, I will be helping with Quick Takes….focusing on science news!

There has been a fascinating discovery of an intriguing new species in the famous Burgess Shale.

Paleontologists have discovered a massive new arthropod fossil species that lived in North America during the Cambrian period more than a half-billion years ago.

The fossil remains were uncovered from the Burgess Shale deposit found throughout Canada’s Kootenay National Park.

Scientists described the new species, Titanokorys gainesi, in a paper published Wednesday in the journal Royal Society Open Science.

Though the horseshoe crab-like arthropod measured just over a foot-and-a-half in length — a moderate size by today’s standards — it would have dwarfed the mostly tiny species that occupied the seas of the Cambrian period.

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