Animation of Ovatiovermis cribratus depicting how the animal would have used its upper limbs to filter small food particles in the water column while holding onto a sea sponge by its lower set of limbs. (Animation: Lars Fields, Phlesch Bubble Productions © Royal Ontario Museum)
The discovery is significant, says the ROM’s senior curator of invertebrate paleontology Jean-Bernard Caron, as Ovatiovermis cribratus will help provide new insight into the poorly-understood ecology of lobopodians, which are key to understanding modern tardigrades (water bears), onychophorans (velvet worms) and arthropods.
Researchers believe Ovatiovermis cribratus had two long pairs of flexible and hairy or spiky limbs in the front to collect food from the water, strong recurved claws on its back limbs, which may have helped anchor it to hard surfaces, and a toothed, eversible mouth. It was a particle feeder (as its name cibratus, Latin for “to sieve” suggests) and, unlike other lobopodians, did not have any hard structures, such as rigid spines or plates, protecting its body, a characteristic previously thought to be ubiquitous among Cambrian organisms.