Typhloesus wellsi lived about 330 million years ago and was discovered at the Bear Gulch Limestone fossil site in Montana in the late 1960s, with the remains of other species subsequently identified. But with features such as a rugby ball-shaped body up to 90mm (3.5in) long, a fin at its rear end, no backbone or anus and no shell, Typhloesus’ anatomy left scientists confused as to where it belonged . the tree of Life. The discovery of tiny teeth inside the fossils of Typhloesus that eventually turned out to be the remains of a final meal of tiny, eel-shaped, extinct fish known as conodonts had added to the confusion. Graphic Typhloesus wellsi Dr. Jean-Bernard Caron, co-author of the study from the Royal Ontario Museum, said:[Typhloesus] it was somewhat of an orphan on the tree of life.’ But researchers say a serrated structure found in the animals’ gut may help clear up the confusion. Caron said: “This is what we believe [Typhloesus] may be some kind of unique group of molluscs that evolved during the Carboniferous [period] and finally disappeared.” Writing in the journal Biology Letters, Caron and his colleague Professor Simon Conway Morris, of the University of Cambridge, describe how they studied about a dozen specimens of typhus housed at the Royal Ontario Museum, many of which had not been studied before. At the center of many of the specimens, they found evidence of a feeding apparatus similar to the toothed ribbon – radula – seen in molluscs today. Located in the foregut of the typhoid, the 4 mm long structure consists of two rows of about 20 triangular teeth, curved backwards. Researchers say it’s possible that Typhlois turned the structure inside out, projecting it beyond the body to capture prey. “An analogy here [is] the tongue of a lizard, for example, capturing an insect. It’s very fast and brings food into the mouth,” Caron said, adding that in addition to eating conodonts, it’s possible Typhloesus ate algae from the sea floor. Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you to the top stories and what they mean, free every weekday morning Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. But Caron said the case is not completely closed. “We know it’s a kind of mollusk, but it’s still a very strange mollusk,” he said, adding that it was unlikely everyone would agree with the team’s interpretation that the creature might have been a type of gastropod. family that includes snails and slugs. Dr Luke Parry, a palaeontologist at the University of Oxford, who was not involved in the work, welcomed the study. “The radula they’ve identified seems fascinating to me, so this [is] “essentially a paleontological mystery solved even if the authors cannot place the fossil very precisely on the gastropod tree of life,” he said. Professor Mark Purnell, from the Center for Palaeobiology at the University of Leicester, said that while the radula is convincing, it remains unclear whether Typhloesus was a mollusk, given that different types of animals have independently evolved radula-like features. “It’s still a very strange animal,” he said. “[The researchers] they’ve found some tantalizing new information, but it’s far from a slam-dunk case in terms of knowing for sure what this strange thing is.”
