By: Emily Liu

A very rare worm fossil that lived about half a billion years ago was unearthed in China, on July 31 2024. What makes this fossil so rare is that the worm’s internal organs were almost completely intact, while the fossil was the size of a poppy seed.

Internal organs are organs that are located in your body. An example in the human body is, lungs, stomach, and more. This larva, a fragile baby insect, was an early relative of the arthropods, a group of creatures including insects, crabs, centipedes and more. The fossil was preserved so well that scientists say “the chances of finding fossils like this, is practically zero.” This fossil is so rare because a larva as fragile as this that is almost intact, is unbelievable.

Fossils are creatures that got buried by sediment, (sand, clay, and gravel) which got preserved when the pressure of the sand made the layer beneath rock. This process takes years to complete. The soft part of the body rotted away, leaving the hard parts of the body for scientists to discover.

Dr Martin Smith, who had written a report about this amazing discovery, explained that by looking at this, they can now figure out how insects like butterflies have such complicated brains and organs. As they only had adult fossils to study previously, he said the complexity seemed to come from nowhere but now they can have a better understanding of how it happens.