Science
The desperate hours: a pro baseball pitcher's fentanyl overdose
Not many victims of the opioid crisis in America make national headlines. Tyler Skaggs was different.
The 27-year-old was a professional athlete, a pitcher for the Angels, wealthy and famous. On a road trip with the team, he was found in his hotel room. He had choked on his own vomit after consuming a mix of alcohol, oxycodone and fentanyl.
His death on July 1, 2019, sent shock waves through the sports world. A highly publicized criminal investigation not only revealed that Skaggs had secretly used painkillers for years, but also led to the arrest of a team employee accused of providing him with tainted, black market pills.
Five years later, The Times has pored over hundreds of pages of court documents and cellphone records to reconstruct Skaggs’ final hours. Playing cards with teammates on a three-hour flight. Teasing rookies on the bus. Trading affectionate texts with his wife until late at night.
Even the most ordinary details tell an important story, offering an intimate look at an epidemic that has ravaged the country.
Tyler Skaggs pitches against the Oakland Athletics on June 29, 2019, two days before his death.
(Marcio Jose Sanchez / Associated Press)
Skaggs pitches at Angel Stadium against the Oakland A’s and is pulled after surrendering two runs in four-plus innings. CAA agent Nez Balelo texts to commiserate about “the quick hook … after cruising basically through 3 and 4.”
Skaggs is nothing if not dogged. At 6 feet 4 and 225 pounds, he has fought back from a string of serious injuries, refusing to quit, which might help explain his painkiller use. After the game, his mother, Debbie Hetman, a longtime softball coach at Santa Monica High, calls him and his wife.
“I didn’t FaceTime him because I was – we were super busy, so we just talked really quickly,” Hetman later testifies during the team employee’s trial. “I think he was in line at In-N-Out with Carli.”
Mike Trout, wearing Tyler Skaggs’ number in his honor, speaks to Eric Kay in the dugout before a July, 12, 2019, home game against the Seattle Mariners.
( John McCoy / Getty Images)
(Animation by Kelvin Kuo/Los Angeles Times)
Shortly before a 1:07 p.m. game against the A’s, Skaggs receives a text from Eric Kay, the team communications director who for years has allegedly supplied him with “blue boys” — blue, 30-milligram oxycodone pills.
Kay: “Hoe [sic] many?”
Skaggs: “Just a few like 5”
Kay: “Word”
Skaggs: “Don’t need many”
4:25 p.m. Pacific Time
The Angels conclude their four-game home series with a 12-3 loss. It is a get-away day, meaning the team will head directly from the stadium to Long Beach Airport, where a charter plane waits for the start of the road trip.
Skaggs has previously asked his manager’s permission for the players to dress like cowboys for the flight to Texas. Before leaving the stadium, he meets his wife, Carli, so she can snap pictures of him in his black hat, bolo tie and boots.
“When did he buy that outfit?” a prosecutor later asks her during Kay’s trial.
“The day before.”
“Did you help him pick it out?”
“Yes.”
6:11 p.m. PT
Skaggs gathers with teammates on the tarmac beside a United Airlines charter plane for another photo to show off their Western wear. He hitches his thumbs in his belt like a cowboy. Seeing the picture on Instagram, Carli comments: “So cute”
8:07 p.m. PT
(Animation by Kelvin Kuo/Los Angeles Times)
With the Texas Rangers next on the schedule, the flight to Dallas Fort Worth International Airport lasts about three hours. Along the way, Carli texts to ask how things are going.
Skaggs: “Good gambling … losing”
Carli: “Damn babe … How much cool … Lol*”
Skaggs: “200 bucks … I’m winning now”
Carli: “Sweet”
11:06 p.m. Central Time
On the 15-minute ride from the airport to a Dallas-area hotel, Skaggs grabs a microphone at the front of the bus.
“So, he would have been kind of like emceeing, doing the music,” teammate Andrew Heaney later testifies. “You know, we would call younger guys up, ask them, you know, embarrassing questions or make them tell a funny story or whatever it may be, make them sing a song, something like that.”
Throughout the league, Skaggs is known as friendly, funny, eminently likable. Teammate Mike Trout later says: “The energy he brought to a clubhouse … every time you saw him, he’s just picking you up.”
11:25 p.m. CT
The Angels arrive at the Hilton Dallas/Southlake Town Square, where players receive key cards to their rooms and peruse a table of snacks, protein bars and Gatorade. A friend invites Skaggs to go out, but the pitcher remains in his room.
11:47 p.m. CT
(Animation by Kelvin Kuo/Los Angeles Times)
Skaggs texts his room number to Kay.
“469,” he writes, adding: “Come by”
“K,” the communications director responds.
Kay had used opioids enough to know black market oxycodone pills might be laced with dangerous drugs such as fentanyl, a synthetic opioid 50 to 100 times more powerful than morphine. In a jailhouse call recorded after his trial, he denies giving drugs to Skaggs that night, saying he visited the pitcher to talk about something else.
“I guess he hated the rookies or something — and he was one flight up so I flipped my door and went up,” he says.
The hotel does not have security cameras in the hallway, so it is unclear how long Kay spends in room 469.
12:02 a.m. CT
(Animation by Kelvin Kuo/Los Angeles Times)
Skaggs texts with teammate Ty Buttrey. He then trades messages with his wife.
Skaggs: “Miss you babe”
Carli: “Miss u too”
When the two met in 2013, Skaggs reportedly fell hard. Now, they have a house and are thinking about kids. They text continually when the Angels are traveling.
12:42 a.m. CT
“What u Doin,” Carli asks.
No answer. She tries again: “Helllooooo.”
1:09 a.m. CT
It is late in Dallas — two hours later than Los Angeles — and Carli is still waiting for a “goodnight” from her husband. She writes: “U know better than to get drunk and fall asleep without texting me”
Approx. 12:53 p.m. CT
Angels’ Mike Trout, left, embraces Andrew Heaney, who fights back tears as he answers questions about their late friend and teammate Tyler Skaggs.
(Tony Gutierrez / Associated Press)
The night passes, followed by morning, and still no word from Skaggs. Heaney texts him: “Lunch?”
After a few minutes, Heaney stops by room 469. Light shines from under the door; the curtains must be open in there. Nearby, hotel workers are noisily cleaning a carpet. Heaney wonders how anyone could sleep through all this.
When his knock gets no response, he goes back to his room and tries calling Skaggs on the hotel phone.
1:49 p.m. CT
Tom Taylor, the Angels traveling secretary, is having lunch with Kay at a nearby barbecue joint and recalls Carli texting him. Heaney also reaches out to Taylor.
“He hadn’t heard from him either,” Taylor later testifies.
More than 12 hours after Carli’s last exchange with her husband, she messages again: “You have a drinking problem. I’m about to text tom Taylor.”
Carli later insists these words were sent “purely out of anger” with “no truth to it.”
Irritation gives way to another emotion. Carli contacts Skaggs’ mother, Hetman.
“She was really nervous,” Hetman later testifies. “I was really nervous because it was very unusual not to hear back from Tyler. Tyler was very good about returning text messages.” Hetman dials his number, and it sounds as if the call goes directly to voicemail. Her husband, Dan Ramos, sends a text:
“Hi kid. How r u doing. How is life treating u. How is your arm feeling”
A photo of Tyler Skaggs and his wife, Carli, is displayed outside a memorial service for the Angels pitcher in 2019.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
2:04 p.m. CT
Now Hetman tries texting: “Hey Ty Are you okay today?”
Around the same time, Taylor returns to the hotel and knocks on Skaggs’ door. He then summons Chuck Knight, one of the team’s security men, and they ask hotel management to let them into room 469.
A former Anaheim Police Department officer, Knight enters the room alone, staying less than a minute. Taylor later recalls him emerging with “a shocked-looking face, almost like, it’s not good, what he saw.”
2:16 p.m. CT
Knight calls 911. Asked later about what he encountered in the room, he testifies: “I saw two legs hanging off the end of the bed in a position that I thought was unusual for someone that might be sleeping … I walked closer in an attempt to obtain a pulse. I reached down to grab his wrist and noticed that his skin was very cool to the touch. I did not obtain a pulse.”
Heaney, who is getting messages from Carli, returns to the hallway outside room 469. Taylor tells him: “It’s not good.”
“I knew what was going on, but his wife didn’t,” Heaney later testifies. “And she was texting me, so it was — I just felt like I wanted her to know what was going on.”
He decides not to answer.
A call crackles over the scanner: “Medic 4-1, truck 4-1 respond. Medical emergency, Hilton Southlake Town Square.” The dispatcher adds: “It’s gonna be … a possible death investigation. PD is arriving on scene now.”
A Southlake police officer finds Skaggs’ room looking mostly undisturbed — the bed still made, a backpack and another bag on the couch, unopened beers on the coffee table. There is a white, “almost chalky” substance on the desk. Skaggs’ cellphone lies near his head.
A memorial for Tyler Skaggs on the outfield wall at Angel Stadium.
(Los Angeles Times)
2:23 p.m. CT
Cory Teague, a Southlake Fire Department paramedic, arrives at room 469. His medical supplies include Naloxone, which can be administered to reverse the effects of opioid overdose.
“Did you use it?” a prosecutor later asks at trial.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“The patient had signs incompatible with life, unable to be revived.”
3:05 p.m. CT
Carli’s phone rings as she pulls up to her parents’ house in Santa Monica. It’s Billy Eppler, the Angels’ general manager. “I’ll never, ever forget that call,” she later says. She dials Hetman, who is at her Los Angeles home, and breaks the news. Hetman later recalls “crying and yelling and screaming.”
Buses are scheduled to take the Angels to their evening game. Instead, players and staff are told of Skaggs’ death and shepherded into a hotel banquet room where police take statements.
“The questions that we asked were generic for each player and employee,” Cpl. Delaney Green of the Southlake Police Department later testifies. “And it was along the lines of: When was the last time that you had seen or spoken to Tyler Skaggs? Had you seen him consume any alcohol on the plane? And did you know of any drug use that you were aware of?”
Kay is among those interviewed. He tells police that Skaggs was drinking on the flight to Texas but adds, “I didn’t think he had a lot.” He says he last saw the pitcher when they collected their room keys in the lobby.
3:52 p.m. CT
The Times and other news agencies report Skaggs’ death on social media. Family members call his mother at home. She later testifies that “before I could even talk to anybody, that whole — everything was like blowing up and it was super-crazy.”
4:11 p.m. CT
Angels manager Brad Ausmus speaks at a 2019 news conference about Tyler Skaggs’ death.
(Tony Gutierrez / Associated Press)
The Rangers announce the postponement of that night’s game as the Angels switch to another hotel. The team gathers for an emotional meeting. “We were able to talk about Tyler and laugh at some of the stories and some of the goofy things he did, listen to some of his music,” manager Brad Ausmus later says before breaking down.
On social media, players from around the league post messages.
“RIP to my longtime friend and Little League teammate,” then-St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Ryan Sherriff writes. “i love you brotha.”
About 8 p.m. CT
Carli and the Skaggs family board a flight to Texas.
About 10 a.m. CT
Carli and the Skaggs family visit the medical examiner’s office in Fort Worth. She later recalls kissing her husband’s cold lips as he lay on a gurney.
11:10 a.m. CT
The medical examiner begins an autopsy. He will eventually determine that “alcohol, fentanyl and oxycodone intoxication” caused Skaggs to choke on his own vomit.
Later that morning, Carli and the Skaggs family arrive at the Southlake police station to retrieve his luggage, iPad and other belongings.
In words that underscore the anguish of losing a loved one to opioids, Hetman later testifies: “I was angry because I knew that my son loved life and he did not want to die. He did not know that there was poison in that pill that cost him his life.”
About 5:30 p.m. CT
Team officials hold a news conference with Kay standing quietly to the side, hands clasped at his waist. At one point, he appears to take a deep breath, look toward the ceiling and exhale.
7:05 p.m. CT
Teammates place jerseys with Tyler Skaggs’ number 45 on the mound at Angel Stadium at their first home game after his death.
(Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)
The game against the Rangers proceeds as scheduled. The ballpark is eerily quiet, with the home team forgoing the usual walk-up music.
The Angels, wearing black No. 45 patches on their jerseys, score early and cruise to a surprising 9-4 victory, but Trout says: “All I was thinking about was Tyler. It was just a different feeling, you know. Just shock.”
Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs died of an overdose in a hotel room on July 1, 2019.
(K.C. Alfred/San Diego Union-Tribune)
Federal prosecutors charged Kay with distribution of a controlled substance resulting in death and conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute controlled substances. A trial began in February 2022.
“This was a case of one, one person who went up to that room on June 30,” a prosecutor said in court. “One person who went into that room and gave Tyler Skaggs fentanyl.”
The jury deliberated less than 90 minutes before returning a guilty verdict on both counts.
At a hearing where the judge sentenced him to 22 years in federal prison, Kay — who didn’t testify during trial — apologized to his family for the “disgrace and embarrassment” he had caused them.
Privately, however, he continued to profess innocence. In a recorded jailhouse call, he told a friend: “The worst thing, though, is that text that he sent me … because I didn’t know what he wanted. I had no idea. In my head, I think he thought I already got more [pills] for him but I told him they were going to be s—.”
By then, the Skaggs family had filed a wrongful-death suit against the Angels. The team has denied wrongdoing, and the case continues.
In the five years since Skaggs died, opioid overdoses — fueled by illicitly manufactured pills — have claimed hundreds of thousands of American lives.
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration has a 24-hour helpline for individuals and families facing mental and substance abuse disorders. The number is (800) 662-HELP (4357).
America’s efforts to cut its climate change pollution stalled in 2024, with greenhouse gas emissions dropping just a fraction, 0.2 percent, compared to the year before, according to estimates published Thursday by the Rhodium Group, a research firm.
Despite continued rapid growth in solar and wind power, emissions levels stayed relatively flat last year because demand for electricity surged nationwide, which led to a spike in the amount of natural gas burned by power plants.
The fact that emissions didn’t decline much means the United States is even further off-track from hitting President Biden’s goal of slashing greenhouse gases 50 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. Scientists say all major economies would have to cut their emissions deeply this decade to keep global warming at relatively low levels.
Since 2005, United States emissions have fallen roughly 20 percent, a significant drop at a time when the economy has also expanded. But to meet its climate goals, U.S. emissions would need to decline nearly 10 times as fast each year as they’ve fallen over the past decade. That seems increasingly unlikely, experts say, especially since President-elect Donald J. Trump has promised to dismantle Mr. Biden’s climate policies and promote the production of fossil fuels, the burning of which generates greenhouse gases.
“On the one hand, it is notable that we’ve now seen two years in a row where the U.S. economy grew but emissions went down,” said Ben King, an associate director at the Rhodium Group. “But it’s far from enough to achieve our climate targets.”
The biggest reason that U.S. emissions have fallen in recent years is that electric utilities have been retiring their older, dirtier coal-fired power plants and replacing them with cheaper and less-polluting natural gas, wind and solar power. That trend mostly continued last year, with a few unexpected ups and downs.
The nation’s demand for electricity, which has stayed more or less flat for two decades, suddenly jumped by roughly 3 percent in 2024, in large part because scorching heat during the summer caused many Americans to crank up their air-conditioners. A smaller factor was that tech companies have been building more energy-hungry data centers in states like Virginia and Texas.
While power companies installed large numbers of wind turbines, solar panels and batteries last year to meet rising demand, natural gas use also rose to record highs, while coal use declined only slightly. The net result was that emissions from the power sector increased an estimated 0.2 percent, according to the Rhodium Group.
At the same time, transportation, the nation’s largest source of greenhouse gases, saw an 0.8 percent rise in emissions last year. Gasoline and jet fuel consumption both increased as Americans continued to drive and fly more after the pandemic. Nearly 10 percent of new car sales in 2024 were less-polluting electric vehicles, but those models still make up a small fraction of total cars on the road and have yet to put a major dent in transportation emissions.
On the flip side, emissions from America’s industrial sector — which includes steel, cement and chemicals — fell by 1.8 percent in 2024. Some of that may have been the result of lost output, as two hurricanes and a strike at the nation’s ports disrupted some factory activity in the fall, Mr. King said.
“It’s a reminder that there’s always some bumpiness in emissions,” Mr. King said. “It’s not just a question of how many electric vehicles are on the road or how much solar we’ve installed. A big portion of our economy still relies on fossil fuels.”
One of the most striking findings in this year’s data was that emissions from oil and gas operations dropped roughly 3.7 percent in 2024. Even though the United States produced record amounts of oil and near-record amounts of natural gas last year, many companies appear to have curbed leaks of methane, which is the main ingredient in natural gas and which can seep into the atmosphere and contribute significantly to global warming.
Over the past few years, the Biden administration and several states have adopted new regulations that require oil and gas producers to detect and fix methane leaks. Many companies also have financial incentives to capture methane to sell rather than vent it into the air.
Between 2014 and 2024, U.S. companies appear to have reduced the amount of methane that escaped, per each cubic feet of gas they produced, by 40 percent, according to the Rhodium Group.
Several experts have estimated that greenhouse gases generated in the United States could start dropping sharply in the years ahead if many clean energy policies stay in place, particularly the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act that pumped hundreds of billions of dollars into low-carbon energy technologies such as electric vehicles, wind turbines, solar panels, nuclear reactors, green hydrogen and batteries.
While Mr. Trump has pledged to scrap many of Mr. Biden’s subsidies and tax credits for electric vehicles and low-carbon energy, it remains to be seen whether Congress will agree.
That law has not yet had a major impact on the country’s emissions, said Mr. King, since it takes time for new factories to open and power plants to get built. But, he said, data shows that low-carbon energy and transportation now make up fully 5 percent of total U.S. private investment.
“That’s a leading indicator that things are changing quickly,” he said.
You don’t have to live close to a wildfire to be affected by its smoke. With severe winds fanning the fires in and around Pacific Palisades, the Pasadena foothills and Simi Valley, huge swaths of the Southland are contending with dangerous air quality.
Wildfire smoke can irritate your eyes, nose, throat and lungs. The soot may contain all kinds of dangerous pollutants, including some that may cause cancer. The tiniest particles in smoke can travel deep into your lungs or even enter your bloodstream.
Conditions like these aren’t good for anyone, but they’re particularly bad for people in vulnerable groups, including children, those with asthma or other respiratory conditions, people with heart disease and those who are pregnant.
Here’s what you should know to keep yourself safe.
Stay indoors
Minimize your exposure to unhealthy air by staying inside and keeping your doors and windows shut.
If you have a central heating and air conditioning system, you can keep your indoor air clean by turning it on and keeping it running. Make sure the fresh-air intake is closed so that you’re not drawing in outdoor air.
Keep your pets inside
They shouldn’t breathe the unhealthy air either.
Check your air filters
Clean filters work better than dirty ones, and high-efficiency filters work better than regular ones. The California Air Resources Board and the South Coast Air Quality Management District recommend filters with a MERV rating of 13 or higher.
You might consider using portable high-efficiency air cleaner in a room where you spend the most time. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has information about them here, and CARB has a list of certified cleaning devices here.
Don’t pollute your indoor air
That means no burning candles or incense. If your power is out and you need to see in the dark, you’re much better off with a flashlight or headlamp.
If you’re cold, bundle up. This is not the time to start a cozy fire in the fireplace. Don’t use a gas stove or wood-fired appliances, since these will make your indoor air quality worse, not better, the AQMD says.
The CDC also advises against vacuuming, since it can stir up dust and release fine particles into the air.
Take care when cleaning up
You don’t want your skin to come into contact with wildfire ash. That means you should wear long sleeves, pants, gloves, socks and shoes. The AQMD even wants you to wear goggles.
If you’re sweeping up ash outdoors, get a hose and mist it with water first. That will keep it from flying up in the air as you move it around. Once the ash is wet, sweep it up gently with a broom or mop. Bag it up in a plastic bag and throw it away.
It’s a good idea to wash your vehicles and outdoor toys if they’re covered in ash. Try not to send ashy water into storm drains. Direct the dirty water into ground areas instead, the AQMD advises.
Those with lung or heart problems should avoid clean-up activities.
Discard spoiled food…
If you lost power for a significant length of time, the food in your refrigerator or freezer may be spoiled.
Food kept in a fridge should stay safe for up to four hours if you’ve kept the door closed. If you’ve been without power for longer than that, you’ll need to toss all perishable items, including meat, poultry, fish, eggs, milk and cut fruits and vegetables. Anything with “an unusual smell, color, or texture” should be thrown out as well, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease and Control Prevention.
Refrigerated medicines should be OK unless the power was out for more than a day. Check the label to make sure.
…even if it was in the freezer
Your freezer may be in better shape, especially if it’s well-stocked. Items in a full freezer may be safe for up to 48 hours if it’s been kept shut, and a half-full freezer may be OK for up to 24 hours. (The frozen items help keep each other cold, so the more the better.)
If items have remained below 40 degrees Fahrenheit (4 degrees Celsius) or you can still see ice crystals in them, they may be OK to use or refreeze, according to the federal government’s food safety website.
Ice cream and frozen yogurt should be thrown out if the power goes out for any amount of time. Meat, poultry, seafood, eggs, milk and most other dairy products need to go if they were exposed to temperatures above 40 degrees F for two hours or longer. The same goes for frozen meals, casseroles, soups, stews and cakes, pies and pastries with custard or cheese fillings.
Fruit and fruit juices that have started to thaw can be refrozen unless they’ve started to get moldy, slimy or smell like yeast. Vegetables and vegetable juices should be discarded if they’ve been above 40 degrees F for six hours or more, even if they look and smell fine.
Breakfast items like waffles and bagels can be refrozen, as can breads, rolls, muffins and other baked goods without custard fillings.
Consider alternative shelter
If you’ve done everything you can but your eyes are still watering, you can’t stop coughing, or you just don’t feel well, seek alternative shelter where the air quality is better.
Hold off on vigorous exercise
Doing anything that would cause you to breathe in more deeply is a bad idea right now.
Mask up outdoors
If you need to be outside for an extended time, be sure to wear a high-quality mask. A surgical mask or cloth mask won’t cut it — health authorities agree that you should reach for an N95 or P-100 respirator with a tight seal.
Are young children at greater risk of wildfire smoke?
Very young children are especially vulnerable to the effects of wildfire smoke because their lungs are still rapidly developing. And because they breathe much faster than adults, they are taking in more toxic particulate matter relative to their tiny bodies, which can trigger inflammation, coughing and wheezing.
Any kind of air pollution can be dangerous to young children, but wildfire smoke is about 10 times as toxic for children compared to air pollution from burning fossil fuels, said Dr. Lisa Patel, clinical associate professor of pediatrics at Stanford Children’s Health. Young children with preexisting respiratory problems like asthma are at even greater risk.
Patel advises parents to keep their young children indoors as much as possible, create a safe room in their home with an air purifier, and try to avoid using gas stoves to avoid polluting the indoor air.
Children over the age of 2 should also wear a well-fitting KN95 mask if they will be outdoors for a long period of time. Infants and toddlers younger than that don’t need to mask up because it can be a suffocation risk, Patel said.
What are the risks for pregnant people?
Pregnant people should also take extra precautions around wildfire smoke, which can cross the placenta and affect a developing fetus. Studies have found that exposure to wildfire smoke during pregnancy can increase the risk of premature birth and low birth weight. Researchers have also linked the toxic chemicals in smoke with maternal health complications including hypertension and preeclampsia.
What about other high-risk populations?
Certain chronic diseases including asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or other respiratory conditions can also make you particularly vulnerable to wildfire smoke. People with heart disease, diabetes and chronic kidney disease should take extra care to breathe clean air, the CDC says. The tiny particles in wildfire smoke can aggravate existing health problems, and may make heart attacks or strokes more likely, CARB warns.
Get ready for the next emergency
Living in Southern California means another wildfire is coming sooner or later. To prepare for the bad air, you can:
- Stock up on disposable respirators, like N95 or P-100s.
- Have clean filters ready for your A/C system and change them out when things get smoky.
- Know how to check the air quality where you live and work. The AQMD has an interactive map that’s updated hourly. Just type in an address and it will zoom in on the location. You can also sign up to get air quality alerts by email or on your smartphone.
- Know where your fire extinguisher is and keep it handy.
- If you have a heart or lung condition, keep at least five days’ worth of medication on hand.
Times staff writer Karen Garcia contributed to this report.
Mark Sutton, an Imperial College London paleontologist, is not a punk.
“I’m more of a folk and country person,” he said.
But when Dr. Sutton pieced together 3-D renderings of a tiny fossil mollusk, he was struck by the spikes that covered its wormlike body. “This is like a classic punk hairstyle, the way it’s sticking up,” he thought. He called the fossil “Punk.” Then he found a similar fossil with downward-tipped spines reminiscent of long, side-swept “emo” bangs. He nicknamed that specimen after the emotional alt-rock genre.
On Wednesday, Dr. Sutton and his colleagues published a paper in the journal Nature formally naming the creatures as the species Punk ferox and Emo vorticaudum. True to their names, these worm-mollusks are behind something of an upset (if not quite “anarchy in the U.K.”) over scientists’ understanding of the origins of one of the biggest groups of animals on Earth.
In terms of sheer number of species, mollusks are second only to arthropods (the group that contains insects, spiders and crustaceans). The better-known half of the mollusk family tree, conchiferans, contains animals like snails, clams and octopuses. “The other half is this weird and wacky group of spiny things,” Dr. Sutton said. Some animals in this branch, the aculiferans, resemble armored marine slugs, while others are “obscure, weird molluscan worms,” he said.
Punk and Emo, the forerunners of today’s worm-mollusks, lived on the dark seafloor amid gardens of sponges, nearly 200 million years before the first dinosaurs emerged on land. Today, their ancient seafloor is a fossil site at the border between England and Wales.
The site is littered with rounded rocky nodules that “look a bit like potatoes,” Dr. Sutton said. “And then you crack them open, and some of them have got these fossils inside. But the thing is, they don’t really look like much at first.”
While the nodules can preserve an entire animal’s body in 3-D, the cross-section that becomes visible when a nodule is cracked open can be difficult to interpret “because you’re not seeing the full anatomy,” Dr. Sutton said.
Paleontologists can use CT scans to see parts of fossils still hidden in rock, essentially taking thousands of X-rays of the fossil and then stitching those X-ray slices together into one digital 3-D image. But in these nodules, the fossilized creatures and the rock surrounding them are too similar in density to be easily differentiated by X-rays. Instead, Dr. Sutton essentially recreated this process of slicing and imaging by hand.
“We grind away a slice at a time, take a photo, repeat at 20-micron intervals or so, and basically destroy but digitize the fossil as we go,” Dr. Sutton said. At the end of the process, the original fossil nodule is “a sad-looking pile of dust,” but the thousands of images, when painstakingly digitally combined, provide a remarkable picture of the fossil animal.
Punk and Emo’s Hot Topic-worthy spikes set them apart from other fossils from the aculiferan branch of the mollusk family. “We don’t know much about aculiferans, and it’s unusual to find out we’ve suddenly got two,” Dr. Sutton said.
Stewart Edie, the curator of fossil bivalves at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, said that Punk and Emo’s bizarre appearances shook up a long-held understanding of how mollusks evolved. Traditionally, scientists thought that the group of mollusks containing snails, clams and cephalopods “saw all of the evolutionary action,” said Dr. Edie, who was not involved with the new discovery. “And the other major group, the aculiferans, were considerably less adventurous.” But Punk and Emo “buck that trend,” he said.
The new alt-rock aculiferans reveal the hidden diversity of their group in the distant past and raise questions about why their descendants make up such a small part of the mollusk class today. “This is really giving us an almost unprecedented window into the sorts of things that were actually around when mollusks were getting going,” Dr. Sutton said. “It’s just this little weird, unexpected, really clear view of what was going on in the early history of one of the most important groups of animals.”
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