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WASHINGTON: An international team of researchers have discovered a species of 425 million years old parasite that was still fixed on the host animal that it had attacked. Researchers found the fossil at a site in Herefordshire in the Welsh borders. In order to study deeply, Prof. David Siveter from the University of Leicester and his colleagues made digital ‘virtual fossil’ by scanning layers of the limestone, in which it was embedded.
He spoke on the importance of the discovery, and also described the importance of site for scientists. He was speaking to the BBC whilst on a field trip in Japan. The fossil has been discovered in England; it is a 425-million-year old tongue worm. It is a prehistoric parasitic intruder, found clamped to the host animal it invaded; it lived in its respiratory system.
The tongue worm had a body similar to a worm as it had two pairs of limbs and a head. The parasite lived in the respiratory system of the host; it entered the respiratory system when it was eaten.
The fossil was discovered by Siveter, who works at the Department of Geology at the University of Leicester, together with scientists from the University of Oxford, Imperial College London both in the UK, and Yale University in the US.
