Researchers have unearthed the earliest identified cardiovascular system in a 3-inch ancient arthropod fossil with an "exquisitely preserved" heart and blood vessels.
A team comprising scientists from the University of Arizona, the U.K. and China discovered the creature, which is similar to the modern shrimp, in the Yunnan province in southwest China, Tech Times reported.
Scientists have estimated that the fossil is 520 million years old and believe the creature lived during the Cambrian period when it was buried in dust particles and extraordinarily well-preserved.
"Presumably the conditions had to be just right," Nicholas Strausfeld, a professor of neuroscience at the University of Arizona who worked on the study, said in a statement.
"We believe that these animals were preserved because they were entombed quickly under very fine-grained deposits during some kind of catastrophic event, and were then permeated by certain chemicals in the water while they were squashed flat. It is an invertebrate version of Pompeii."
He estimated that perhaps one in thousands of such specimens would have a system as well-preserved.
The researchers have called the new species Fuxianhuia protensa. The extinct ancient arthropods had "advanced" inner systems that were even more complex than those found in most modern crustaceans.
"Fuxianhuia is relatively abundant, but only extremely few specimens provide evidence of even a small part of an organ system, not even to speak of an entire organ system," Strausfeld said in a statement. "The animal looks simple, but its internal organization is quite elaborate. For example, the brain received many arteries, a pattern that appears very much like a modern crustacean."
The rare fossil specimen discovered in China was preserved enough that scientists could outline traces of carbon to identify the creature's eyes and antennae. Through computer imaging, researcher Xiaoya Ma of London's Natural History Museum found the arthropod's heart and traced its lateral arteries.
The study detailing the specimen's cardiovascular system was published Monday in the journal Nature Communications.
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