typhlonectes:Ancient oddball invertebrate finds its place on the tree of lifeby Cassie MartinTentacl
typhlonectes:Ancient oddball invertebrate finds its place on the tree of lifeby Cassie MartinTentacles protruding from this hyolith’s shell (illustrated) are part of a feeding organ called a lophophore, which is also found in modern horseshoe worms. Hyoliths are evolutionary misfits no more.This class of ancient marine invertebrates has now been firmly pegged as lophophorates, a group whose living members include horseshoe worms and lamp shells, concludes an analysis of more than 1,500 fossils, including preserved soft tissue. The soft-bodied creatures, encased in conical shells, concealed U-shaped guts and rings of tentacles called lophophores that surrounded their mouths. Fossil analysis suggests that hyoliths used those tentacles and spines, called helens, to trawl the seafloor more than 500 million years ago, researchers report online January 11 in Nature…(read more: Science News)images: Royal Ontario Museum -- source link