8/7/2023 0 Comments Acorn wormThe study authors entertain the idea that the Cambrian enteropneusts with tubes might have been evolving from enteropneusts into pterobranchs. Today's enteropneust varieties are tubeless.Įnteropneusts look similar to modern animals called "pterobranchs," which inhabit tiny tubes, while enteropneusts do not. His team's report described how some of the fossil acorn worms constructed tubes. What does this fossil creature-with fully-modern complexity-say about the evolutionary story that fossils supposedly demonstrate a simple-to-complex history of life as one ascends the rocks? And are we to believe that a whopping 505 million years' worth of mutations and natural selection have performed no alterations to acorn worms?Ĭameron did note one difference between the modern and ancient counterparts. Now that is remarkable, to say the least. The Nature study reported, "Here we provide direct evidence for a Cambrian enteropneust, and thus extend their known range by approximately 200 million years." 1 Except for losing the tube, the animal is virtually unchanged in 505 million years." 2 He told National Geographic, "One of the things that blew my mind about this thing is that most animals in the Burgess Shale look nothing like modern-day animals, but this is so clearly an acorn worm. Acorn worms are named for an acorn-shaped bulb they use to burrow into sea floor sediments.Ĭhristopher Cameron currently studies at the Université de Montréal and co-authored the Nature report. The problem is that, although the fossils were found in some of the deepest fossil-bearing rocks, they look just like the modern acorn worms we see today.Īcorn worms, technically "enteropneusts," feature stacks of gill bars used to capture nutrients and exchange waste. Scientists recently rediscovered them, and Nature published their remarkable findings. Since 1911, vaults at the Smithsonian have harbored fossilized worm-like creatures from Cambrian shales. A newly described out-of-place fossil confronts this origins myth. According to evolution, eons ago mere ingredients like mud, minerals, and methane somehow made themselves into some single-celled bacteria…some of those bacteria became worms, and some of the worms eventually became people.
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