Nuucichthys rhynchocephalus was a pelagic organism with limited swimming abilities. Image credit: Franz Anthony.

SciNews has an article about the discovery of the first chordate from the Great American Basin.  Nuucichthys rhynchocephalus is a chordate and an animal that sheds light on early vertebrate evolution.  N. rhynchocephalus lived during the Cambrian Period, about 505 million years ago.  It was found in the Marjum Formation of the American Great Basin in what is now western Utah.   Find the detail in a paper published in the journal Royal Society Open Science.

The ancient animal had a finless torpedo-shaped body that includes a number of markers characteristic of vertebrates.

It is one of only four species documenting the early evolutionary stage of vertebrate lineage.

“The discovery of Nuucichthys rhynchocephalus is a valuable contribution to early vertebrate evolution and biodiversity because of the dearth of these types of organisms in Cambrian fossil sites — including South China, the Northeastern United States, and British Columbia,” said Harvard University paleontologists Rudy Lerosey-Aubril and Javier Ortega-Hernández.

“Early vertebrates start to have big eyes and a series of muscle blocks that we call myotomes, and this is something we recognize very well in our fossil.”

Thanks for the contribution, Dave Carlson.