A 99 million year old fossil snail,
"contemporary of the dinosaurs"
and whose shell has
"short, bristly hairs"
, was recently discovered, we learned on Tuesday from the Natural History Museum of Colmar where it will be exhibited.
Prisoner of a piece of amber from Burma, this species,
"new for science",
has been baptized
Archaeocyclotus brevivillosus
, indicates in a press release the Alsatian museum.
The shell, which measures 9 millimeters long and 3.1 millimeters high,
"is characterized in particular by short and bristly hairs on its entire periphery",
specifies the museum, which was given this precious fossil l year spent by a collector.
According to a study published in December in the scientific journal
Cretaceous Research
, this
"hairiness may have constituted multiple selective advantages for these animals and therefore notably favored their exit from the waters towards continental terrestrial environments during the secondary era",
continues the institution in its press release.
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Camouflage and thermoregulation
This information, which “
is not new
”,
“corrobates the previous ones: the snails, when they conquered the terrestrial environments, had hairs on their shell”,
explains to AFP the malacologist (mollusc specialist) Jean -Michel Bichain, researcher attached to the museum and one of the authors of the study.
The hairiness gave these snails
“several advantages”,
particularly in terms of thermoregulation or the fight against predators, by promoting camouflage, he continues.
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“There are 30 species of snails that are known in Burmese amber,”
a fossil resin mined from the Hukawng Valley in northern Burma that dates back around 99 million years, Jean explains. -Michel Bichain.
This insists on the
“extraordinary”
character of this amber deposit which
“gives a real window on the biodiversity of the era of the dinosaurs”
.
In total,
"there are 200 specimens (of snails) in the collection"
, which is
"very, very low"
, he still notes.
“Any new species therefore informs us about the history of the group”,
continues the researcher.
"
Very few are described and even fewer snails.
On our scale as specialists, it is therefore a very pleasant moment to be able to handle such a part
,” he confides.
The snail with the hairy shell will be visible in its amber gangue in June at the Colmar Museum during an exhibition which will also host a life-size reconstruction of one of the largest and most complete tyrannosaur skeletons.