It may look like the subject of a science fiction movie, but the animation below offers the world’s first glimpse of Ovatiovermis cribratus, a thumb-sized worm-like species from the Cambrian period (541 to 485 million years ago). The rendering was pieced together by artists and researchers at Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum from fossils found at the Burgess Shale fossil deposit, the site of one of the world’s first complex marine ecosystems, in British Columbia’s Yoho National Park.

Ovatiovermis cribratus is one of the rarest species found at the Burgess Shale and one of only three lobopodians, a Cambrian group of worm-like animals, formally described from the UNESCO-designated fossil site. The animal was identified from just two fossils, one found in the Burgess Shale in 1994 and the other uncovered later by a visitor on a guided hike to Walcott Quarry.

Watch an animation of Ovatiovermis cribratus below.