Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Marrella Arthropod Fossil


This image is of two Marrella sp. fossils found in the Burgess Shale of British Columbia, Canada. It is one of the common soft body fossil creatures found there. These fossils date to the Cambrian Period of the Paleozoic Era (about 530 million years ago).

Discovered by Charles D. Walcott who later was in charge of the Smithsonian in the United States. This fossil layer is quite famous. The Smithsonian later sent out specimens to natural history museums across the United States in the 1940s. More than likely this is one of that was sent to the Museum of Natural History and Science in Cincinnati, Ohio. It can be found in the invertebrate fossil display past the Ice Age exhibit in the museum as of August 2013.

Here is an illustration that was on display with these fossils of an artist interpretation of what these creature might have looked like.
Learn more at Wikipedia.org.