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The discovery of a living fossil that scientists believe has been extinct more than a quarter of a billion years ago


Nature reveals its secrets every day in light of endless research and exploration trips, and within the framework of these efforts were found two forms of marine life, which somehow disappeared from the eyes of scientists, and disappeared from the fossil record more than a quarter ago. A billion years ago, until they were recently discovered off the shores of Japan.

The two species discovered were non-skeletal corals or what is known as sea lilies, which were found breeding on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, 100 meters below the surface, off the coast of Honshu and Shikoku, in Japan, according to Russia Today.

Unstructured coral reefs were able to survive undetected, after being absent from the fossil record for a longer period than modern humans believe, and during a period of time ranging from 200,000 to 300,000 years, the researchers wrote: “These samples represent the first records. A breakdown of the modern syn vivo association of crinoid host and hexacoral epibiont.

Crinoids and coral reefs have shared a long symbiotic relationship together for millions of years, as coral reefs use the Crinoids to climb the top of the seafloor to access more food found in the transiting ocean currents.

The joint Polish-Japanese research team, led by paleontologist Mikulaj Zabalski of the University of Warsaw, in Poland, used stereoscopic microscopy to scan with microscopy to look at the internal structures.

They completed their non-invasive investigations using striped DNA coding to identify the exact species, and the researchers found that these newly rediscovered samples did not alter the structure of the skeletons of the Crinoids, providing a potential clue as to why they had disappeared from the fossil record for so long. And that is that fossils of soft organisms are incredibly rare.

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