518 million-years-old mystery sea creature fossil surfaces
Its covered in fine, feather-like 18 branches said to be used to catch prey.
(Web Desk) – The 518 million years old fossil of an 18-tentacles mystery sea creature discovered by scientists in China.
Experts said that this creature with 18 tentacles coming out of its mouth believed to be related to modern day comb jellyfish.
It’s covered in fine, feather-like branches said to be used to catch prey.
The extinct creature was spotted by a team of scientists who were exploring waters in China. It has been dubbed “Daihua sanqiong”.
Lead researcher Jakob Vinther, from Bristol University, told Live Science : "With fossils, we have been able to find out what the bizarre comb jellies originated from.”
"Even though we now can show they came from a very sensible place, it doesn’t make them any less weird.” said Jakob.
"To make a long story short, we were able to reconstruct the whole [early] lineage of comb jellies," by doing anatomical comparisons, Vinther added.
It is believed by some that some of the ancestors of comb jellies had skeletons and that their tentacles involved into the hairy “combs” seen today, the report said.
The creature was discovered by study co-researcher Xianguang Hou, a paleobiologist at Yunnan University.
