A 500-million-year-old fossil from Canada鈥檚 may be the earliest known relative of the squid.
Nectocaris pteryx was thought to be either an arthropod or a chordate, but its strange body meant no one could be sure. Now 91 specimens from a new quarry reveal the creature had a lot in common with cephalopods, including well-developed eyes with an internal lens, a funnel-shaped nozzle for jet propulsion, and two tentacles with bumps that could be primordial suckers (Nature, ).
鈥淭his combination really points to cephalopods,鈥� says at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, who described the findings with his colleague Martin Smith.
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