Washington: Scientists have unearthed the remains of a 450 million year old armour-plated creature, which is one of the world’s rarest fossils, in downtown Ottawa, Canada.
The ancient fossil preserves the complete skeleton of a plumulitid machaeridian, one of only eight such specimens known.

Plumulitids were annelid worms — the group including earthworms, bristleworms and leeches, today found everywhere from the deepest sea to the soil in your yard.
Although plumulitids were small, they reveal important evidence of how this major group of organisms evolved.
The fossil is described by Jakob Vinther of Yale University and Dave Rudkin, of Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum, in the current issue of the journal Palaeontology.
It was Rudkin who first recognised its scientific significance. According to Rudkin, “This nifty little specimen first came to my notice when I received a letter from an amateur fossil collector in Nepean, Ontario. In prospecting for fossils in rock from a temporary building excavation, he had turned up a small block containing a complete trilobite, but next to it was something else and he sent me a slightly fuzzy but very intriguing photo.”
“The mystery fossil was clearly not another trilobite, and I although couldn’t be certain, I thought it might be some sort of annelid worm with broad, flattened scales. James, the collector, generously agreed to lend me the specimen and I realised immediately it was a complete, fully articulated machaeridian! The first I had ever seen,” he said.
    —ANI