Scientists discover 'heavy metal' prehistoric fish-eating worm with 'biggest jaws ever seen'

Scientists have come up with some new fodder for your nightmares in the form of a prehistoric fish-eating worm with the biggest jaws ever seen in such creatures.

The now-extinct bristle worm is an ancestor of modern day earthworms and leeches, and roamed the Palaeozoic seas 400 million years ago.

In fact, the worm was so hardcore that it has been named after a heavy metal bassist – its full species name is Websteroprion armstrongi in tribute to Derek Armstrong who collected the fossils and bass player Alex Webster of death metal band Cannibal Corpse.

Their one centimetre long jaws were many times the size of other worms whose jaws measured just a few millimetres.

They also grew to about one metre long. Scientists say their relatively huge jaws were easily visible to the naked eye and are the largest ever recorded in this type of creature.

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The previously undiscovered species was identified by an international team of scientists who found the ancient fossil in storage at a Canadian museum where it had been stored since 1994 without being studied.

Mats Eriksson, from Lund University in Sweden, said, “Gigantism in animals is an alluring and ecologically important trait, usually associated with advantages and competitive dominance.

“It is, however, a poorly understood phenomenon among marine worms and has never before been demonstrated in a fossil species.”

David Rudkin, from the museum, said: “This is an excellent example of the importance of looking in remote and unexplored areas for finding new exciting things, but also the importance of scrutinising museum collections for overlooked gems.”