Cannibal Corpse? 400 million old Giant Worm discovered with Snapping Jaws

Feb 22, 2017: In June 1994, specimen were collected from Ontario's Kwataboahegan Formation—a cross-section of earth that is hundreds of millions of years old—were recovered, and, for the next 400 million years, stored at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. But recently, an international team of scientists has discovered new species of an extinct primeval giant worm that lived about 400 million years ago and has terrifying biting jaws, mentioned Fox news.

According to the study conducted by researchers, the fossil lying undefiled for more than twenty years at the Royal Ontario Museum in Canada was discovered with the remains of the giant extinct bristle worm (the marine relatives of earthworms and leeches).

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The new species is unique in the way that it possesses the largest jaws ever measured reaching over one centimeter in length and easily visible to the naked eye as compared to the other type of creature, researchers said.

The comparison can be drawn to that of giant eunicid colloquially referred to as Bobbit worms which are menacing and opportunistic ambush predators, which use their gripping jaws to capture prey such as fish and cephalopods such as squids and octopuses and drag them into their burrows.

Lead author Mats Eriksson from Lund University in Sweden quoted that "Gigantism in animals is an alluring and ecologically important trait, usually associated with advantages and competitive dominance".

The worm is still discerned as larger than other worms we see today, and not to forget that any encounter alone with these disturbing species will give panic attack very easily.

– prepared by Naina Mishra of Newsgram, Twitter: @Nainamishr94