Spiny Worm Beast Haunted the Seas 500 Million Years Ago

About 508 million years ago, a skinny, flat worm swam through the deep sea, waiting for the right moment to extend its 50 sharp spines and nab its next meal, a new study finds.

The 4-inch-long (10 centimeters) worm was small — about the length of a toilet paper roll — but its spines would have made it a formidable carnivore, at least for tiny prey, the researchers said.

"The grasping spines in the head — long and curved inward — were used to capture small swimming creatures like crustaceans (shrimp-like creatures) and larvae of other marine animals," study co-researcher Derek Briggs, a professor of paleontology at Yale University, told Live Science in an email.

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