On the unforgiving landscape of North Greenland, temperatures drop and sunlight barely penetrates through the polar winter. It was here, however, that an international team of scientists found evidence of sea monsters that would change our understanding of ocean life in the past.

This video captures the discovery of Timorebestia fossils that had been hidden for more than 500 million years in the Sirius Passet formation. The “terror beasts,” as they are called, are a hidden chapter in the evolutionary history of Earth, showing that sophisticated predator-prey interactions occurred much earlier than previously envisioned.

Dr. Jakob Vinther and his research team at the University of Bristol, in collaboration with researchers at the Korean Polar Research Institute, braved extreme weather conditions at 82.5 north latitude to locate these giant creatures. Using sophisticated electron microprobe analysis, they revealed the detailed anatomy of the animals, including their muscle and nerve tissues.

The find upsets the traditional timeline of sea predators. Although we’ve long appreciated that Cambrian oceans were at one time ruled by arthropods, these discoveries indicate that relatives of arrow worms were first to dominate the seas. These worms were building sophisticated food webs several million years before other predator groups arose.

Each fossil is a story of ancient hunger, with fossil stomach contents revealing these meter-long beasts dined on heavily armored arthropods regularly, cementing their place as the ocean’s first apex predators.

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