Description

Middle Cretaceous (Cenomanian)
Hajoula, Lebanon

40mm worm on 70mm slab

Here is an unidentified marine worm from around the mid-point of the Cretaceous Period.  There are not a lot of Cretaceous sites that preserve soft-bodied animals.  It’s possible this worm is new to science.

Across geologic time, worms have been quite diverse and we will never know about all the forms that have existed since at least the Early Cambrian.  The ones that paleontologists do know about do not belong to the same group.  Many are only distantly related.

Be sure to click the bottom picture for a video of what living polychaetes do.