February 28, 2017

Websteroprion armstrongi fossil (Photo courtesy Luke Parry)

An article published in the journal “Scientific Reports” describes the discovery of a primitive worm with jaws that are huge compared to its body’s size. Called Websteroprion armstrongi, it was studied by a team of researchers after a fossil specimen was discovered at the Royal Ontario Museum, where it was stored in the mid ’80s. It seems to belong to the class of polychaetes (Polychaeta), a marine relative of earthworms and leeches that lived about 400 million years ago.