Before life on Earth The diversity of the internet has explodedSome 540 million year ago, the first primitive animal bones were already beginning to form.
This time, marine sponges with a squishy appearance were discovered in tubular containers Shapes resembling a thimbleStructured by Mineralized, hard threads – specimens that are thought to be among the earliest assemblages of skeletal fossils.
There are few fossils of other early skeletons, and many of them lost their soft parts years ago. As a result, it’s hard to say what Earth’s first skeletal creatures once looked like beyond hollow tubes – and even harder to classify them.
Many fortuitous fossils found in China are providing archeologists with an opportunity to see early life forms that existed around 514 million years ago.
The soft tissue of four wormlike marine creatures from the species have been preserved by the fossils Gangtoucunia aspera.
Scientists initially believed that this extinct genus was an ancestor of the living. annelid worms(such as earthworms), are horizontally segmented. However, these results are encouraging. GangtoucuniaIt is closely related to polyps cnidarians like jellyfish, sea anemones and coral.
These tube-shaped organisms have mouths ringed with retractable tentacles that measure 5 millimeters (0.2 in) long. They are probably used to catch prey. Their gut occupies most of their body and is divided into longitudinal cavities.
Calcium phosphate, a mineral that is also found in human bones, is used to externally mold the actual form of the creatures.
“This is an amazing discovery. These mysterious tubes are frequently found in hundreds of individuals. But, until now, we have considered them ‘problematic’ fossils since there was no way of classifying them.” “Luke Parry is a paleobiologist from the University of Oxford.
“Thanks for these remarkable new specimens, a key part of the evolutionary puzzle is now in place.”
All four fossils were discovered by researchers in China’s eastern Yunnan Province. There, a dearth of oxygen allowed for soft tissue to escape hungry bacteria.
Only polyp cnidarians are known to have seen the crown of tentacles on the tops these primitive polyps.
Young jellyfish look like vases when they are young. One end of the jellyfish is attached to a flat surface and the other is open to the sea. The entrance has tentacles that help catch prey and put them in the mouth.
Researchers concluded that these results were consistent with their findings. G. asperaIs an ancient seabed polp within or near a cnidarian clade known is medusozoa.
This subclade includes most animals, such as true jellyfish (scyphozoans), that eventually develop free-swimming capabilities. However, some species, like hydrozoa, are still polyps throughout their lives. Hydrozoa polyps are found in colonies. You can create skeletons that are similarTo the G. aspera fossils, too.
“Intriguingly,” say the authors Notification, “we do not recover a close relationship between GangtoucuniaIn a clade of medusozoans with calcium-phosphate exoskeletons it was found, which suggests that tube-building materials may have had a complex evolutionary history. This could be due to convergent losses or reductions in calcium phosphate in the skeletons over time.
Also, it is possible that external skeletons did not evolve one time but many times over the course of multiple lineages.
The diversification of an animal skeleton may have been an example of this. big driverCambrian Explosion itself. However, the sudden appearance in fossil records of structural diversity may be an indication of how difficult it can be for biominerals’ thin threads to withstand time.
Scientists have not found much evidence to support the idea that tube-shaped animals existed before the explosion in animal diversity that has dominated our lives. Their expansion is still a mystery. One possibility is predation.
“A tubicolous mode life seems to have become more common in Cambrian, which may be an adaptive response in the Cambrian to increased predation pressure.” “Xiaoya Ma is a paleobiologist from Yunnan University, China and the University of Exeter, UK.
“This study proves that exceptional soft-tissue preservation can be crucial in understanding ancient animals.”
The study was published by the Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences.
