(ORDO NEWS) — Being an amateur anywhere does not mean that great things will necessarily pass by. True, one cannot cope in any case, which is confirmed by the story of Chris Hafner.
For several years in a row, Chris Hafner led excavations in one of the cemeteries in Pennsylvania. One day, luck smiled at him more than usual and he stumbled upon a little thing of unique scientific value.
An amateur paleontologist has found the remains of an ancient and also previously unknown species of echinoderms.
Its uniqueness lies in the fact that the echinoderm is one of the first underwater animals that have lost their skeleton.
There is safety in numbers
However, Chris Hafner did not immediately understand the full value of the remains. He was helped by a professional paleontologist from Spain, Samuel Zamora.
A senior colleague from Europe saw a photo posted online by an American Hafner and became interested in a historical example.
Later, with the help of colleagues from the UK, it was eventually possible to establish that Hafner’s find was about 510 million years old.
It is reported that the echinoderm once lived in the seas of the Cambrian period of the Paleozoic era. The species has already been given a name – Yorkicystis haefneri.
The peculiarity is that during the Cambrian period, most animals of this species acquired a protective skeleton, but not Yorkicystis haefneri . Paleontologists have yet to learn the reasons why the echinoderm lost its skeleton.
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