Friday 5 September 2014

new branch of life discovered



Deep sea 'mushroom' may be new branch of life
By Paul Rincon Science editor, BBC News website
A mushroom-shaped sea animal discovered off the Australian coast has defied classification in the tree of life.A team of scientists at the University of Copenhagen says the tiny organism does not fit into any of the known subdivisions of the animal kingdom.Such a situation has occurred only a handful of times in the last 100 years.The organisms, which were originally collected in 1986, are described in the academic journal Plos One.The authors of the article note several similarities with the bizarre and enigmatic soft-bodied life forms that lived between 635 and 540 million years ago - the span of Earth history known as the Ediacaran Period.

Always good news for cryptozoologists. Means there are more to be discovered. 

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