A University of Kansas paleontologist exploring an area known for its fossils recently uncovered a never-before-discovered ancient sea worm 鈥� and showed off her 鈥渘erdy鈥� side while naming it.
When Rhiannon LaVine found the 500-million-year-old fossil, the research associate with the university鈥檚 Biodiversity Institute and Natural History Museum was carrying out fieldwork with a team working on the geologic formation .
The formation is located along northern Utah and southern Idaho, according to a university news release.
鈥淥ne of the last times we were out there, I split open one of these pieces of rock and instantly knew it was something that wasn鈥檛 typical,鈥� LaVine said in a statement. 鈥淭he first thing we see are these radial blades that look like stars or flowers.鈥�
She said she quickly showed it to Julian Kimmig, the lead author on the study exploring the annelids.
鈥淗e was perplexed, he said, 鈥業鈥檝e never seen anything like that,鈥欌�� LaVine said.
In a career first, LaVine had the honor of naming the fossil worm as the person who discovered it and as a co-author of the paper focused on it, according to the University of Kansas.
鈥淚鈥檝e been involved in describing species before, but this is the first one I鈥檝e named,鈥� LaVine said in a statement. 鈥淎ctually, I was able to name its genus, so I can put that feather in my cap.鈥�
Inspired by the indigenous name for the worms featured in Frank Herbert鈥檚 鈥淒une鈥� novels 鈥� Shai-Hulud 鈥� the palaeontologist gave the discovery the scientific name of Shaihuludia shurikeni.
鈥淚t was the first thing that came to mind, because I鈥檓 a big ol鈥� nerd and at the time I was getting really excited for the 鈥楧une鈥� movies,鈥� LaVine said.
鈥淪huriken鈥� means 鈥渢hrowing star鈥� in Japanese and represents the shape of the stiff, blade-like bristles of the ancient sea worm that many other annelids also have, according to the university.
LaVine and her co-authors described the sea worm as 鈥渁bout 7 or 8 centimetres long, maybe a little shorter than the length of a smartphone.鈥� They found that the fossil, which is a previously unknown annelid species, is a diverse phylum of around 21,000 segmented worm species found worldwide in freshwater, marine and terrestrial environments, the University of Kansas reported.
The Historical Biology peer-reviewed journal recently .
The fossil specimen is now part of the University of Kansas Biodiversity Institute鈥檚 permanent paleontological collection.
