{"id":3962,"date":"2015-03-11T14:02:03","date_gmt":"2015-03-11T19:02:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/?p=3962"},"modified":"2015-03-10T10:15:41","modified_gmt":"2015-03-10T15:15:41","slug":"earliest-known-giant-filter-feeding-sea-creature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/earliest-known-giant-filter-feeding-sea-creature\/","title":{"rendered":"Earliest known giant filter-feeding sea creature"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_3963\" style=\"width: 460px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/1.-Aegirocassis-benmoulae-reconstruction-feeding.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3963\" class=\"wp-image-3963\" src=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/1.-Aegirocassis-benmoulae-reconstruction-feeding-810x1024.jpg\" alt=\"An artists reconstruction of what Aegirocassis benmoulae would look like. The creature could exceed two meters in length, making it one of the largest arthropods known to science. (Image credit: Marianne Collins, ArtofFact)\" width=\"450\" height=\"568\" srcset=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/1.-Aegirocassis-benmoulae-reconstruction-feeding-810x1024.jpg 810w, http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/1.-Aegirocassis-benmoulae-reconstruction-feeding-237x300.jpg 237w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 450px) 100vw, 450px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-3963\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">An artists reconstruction of what Aegirocassis benmoulae would look like. The creature could exceed two meters in length, making it one of the largest arthropods known to science. (Image credit: Marianne Collins, ArtofFact)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>New fossils from Morocco represent the earliest known giant filter-feeding sea creature, <em>Aegirocassis benmoulae<\/em>. These creatures could exceed two meters in length and fed on plankton much the same way modern whales do.<\/p>\n<p>Scientists think the animals went extinct because there was not enough plankton at the time (around 450 million years ago) to allow such large creatures to survive.<\/p>\n<p>The fossils also provide insights into crustaceans, insects and other modern arthropods\u2019 evolution and history.They offer new insights in \u00a0the evolution of the animals\u2019 trunk whose flaps bear a resemblance to both walking limbs found on insects and gill flaps of lobsters.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/theoncologist.alphamedpress.org\/content\/early\/2015\/03\/06\/theoncologist.2014-0268.abstract?sid=8d68c67f-93bb-4365-9952-fc29eb23de70\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Original research paper<\/span><\/a>\u00a0published in <em>Nature Paleontology\u00a0<\/em>on\u00a0<strong>March 9<\/strong><span class=\"aBn\" tabindex=\"0\" data-term=\"goog_453723367\"><span class=\"aQJ\"><strong>, 2015<\/strong>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><em><strong>Names and affiliations of selected\u00a0authors<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<h4>Peter Van Roy, Department of Geology and Geophysics, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, U.S.A.<\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New fossils from Morocco represent the earliest known giant filter-feeding sea creature, Aegirocassis benmoulae. These creatures could exceed two meters in length and fed on plankton much the same way modern whales do. Scientists think the animals went extinct because there was not enough plankton at the time (around 450 million years ago) to allow [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[917,265,2391],"class_list":["post-3962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-paper-of-interest","tag-evolution","tag-fossil","tag-whate"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4DqbN-11U","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3962"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3962\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3964,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3962\/revisions\/3964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}