Previously, no priapulan worms were known to live in the discarded shells of other animals, Smith said. The worms played an important role in the Cambrian seas, Smith said: The start of the Cambrian period is formally marked by the first appearance of their burrows, which helped mix oxygen into the sea floor, making it more hospitable to other forms of life. Priapulan worms appeared more than 500 million years ago during the Cambrian period, when animal life evolved rapidly in sophistication, complexity and size. “They’ve got this really strange morphology: a trunk that looks a bit like a finger, and a throat lined with little teeth that turns inside out.” “They’re a neat group of animals with an unfortunate name,” Smith said. ![]() ![]() Those early hermits weren’t crabs, but priapulan worms - carnivorous, ocean mud-dwellers known as penis worms.
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