The reporter learned from the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences that the paleontologists of the institute have studied a landmark rare shrimp fossil in the Chengjiang fauna of China again, and found that this "star rare shrimp" has a strange shape, which is different from the named rare shrimp group. The scientific research team has established a new genus and species for it, and named it "Maotian Mountain Pioneering Shrimp". The relevant research results were recently published in the international journal Journal of the Geological Society. The strange shrimp appeared in the early Cambrian more than 500 million years ago. Their body shape is strange. The longest one is more than 2 meters long. They are the first top predators to dominate the sea. The strange shrimp fossils studied in this study were collected from the Chengjiang fauna in Maotian Mountain, Yunnan Province, China, with a history of 518 million years, and are one of the landmark fossils of the Chengjiang fauna. The research team conducted a detailed morphological and anatomical study on this strange shrimp fossil again. Zeng Han, an associate researcher of the South Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, who participated in the research, said that similar to other rare shrimp, this "star rare shrimp" has a streamlined trunk with paired paddle blades and gills for swimming and breathing. Its head has a pair of prickly pliers and a pair of large compound eyes. There is a radiating mouthpiece under the head. What is very special is that the tail of this strange shrimp has a pair of particularly slender tail forks, and the morphological details of its front claws are also significantly different from other strange shrimp. Based on these differences in morphological characteristics, the researchers judged that the strange shrimp on the fossil was different from the named strange shrimp group. The research team has established a new genus and species for it, and named it Maotian Mountain Pioneer Shrimp. The researchers also carried out evolutionary analysis on the pioneer shrimp in Maotian Mountain. The results show that it is very close to the starting point of the evolution of the shrimp group. "This study provides important new evidence for tracing the origin of such animals as shrimp and the evolution of life in the early Cambrian," said researcher Zhao Fangchen, who led the study. (Outlook New Era)