Dating back to the Cambrian period, the fossils ofBurgessomedusa phasmiformiswere discovered in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia.
Christian McCallAn creative person ’s rendition ofBurgessomedusa phasmiformisswimming in the Cambrian ocean .
Jellyfish are some of the strangest creatures on Earth , but they were also some of the earliest complex animals to fill this planet .
Despite having been around apparently forever , though , scientist have had difficulty tracing their origins and observing how jellyfish evolved over clock time . This is mostly due to the fact that these flaccid - bodied creatures are 95 percentage water — and often sprain to goo before their bodies can be preserved .
Christian McCallAn artist’s rendition ofBurgessomedusa phasmiformisswimming in the Cambrian sea.
But a new composition published in the journalProceedings of the Royal Society Bmight put up researchers new brainstorm into the ancient history of Portuguese man-of-war . In the study , Jean - Bernard Caron , a fossilist at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto , and other researchers detailed the discovery of jellyfish fossils that date back 500 million years , potentially making them the oldest swim jellyfish fossils known to science .
“ Sometimes in paleontology you jazz a great breakthrough as before long as it ’s made in the field of view , ” Royal Ontario Museum paleontologist and work writer Joseph Moysiuk read toSmithsonian Magazine .
The jellyfish fossils were discovered in the Burgess Shale , a fossil - racy site in the Canadian Rockies that contains reef life see back more than 508 million eld , around the meter of the Cambrian burst . The internet site has become world - famous for containing the fossils of strange , soft - bodied animals from the other stages of phylogenesis when mollusks and arthropod were starting to take shape .
Royal Ontario MuseumA slab containing two Cambrian specimens with their tentacles preserved.
Like former soft - incarnate puppet found at the site , these ancient jellyfish have been preserved with singular detail . Moysiuk said the jellyfish fogy are “ quite large and obvious , even when they ’re covered in mud . ”
When paleontologist first found the dodo in the later 1980s and early nineties , they now knew they had found ancient jellyfish . In all , they recovered 182 fossil from the Raymond Quarry in British Columbia — the only place where they have been find — but it take decades before researcher officially depict them . The results were a new coinage of jellyfish , which researchers namedBurgessomedusa phasmiformis .
accord to theNew York Times , the newly named species is part of a divers group known as medusozoans , which researchers estimate emerged at least 600 million age ago and are still swimming the oceans today .
Paleontologists have been searching for Welsh jellyfish dodo for well over a century , start in 1911 when Charles Doolittle Walcott , administrator for the Smithsonian Institution , discovered what he believed to be a pocket-sized , circular man-of-war in a magnetic disk - shape fossil witness in the Burgess Shale .
Later inquiry let on this fogy to be the back talk part of an arthropod known asPeytoia . Despite this mix - up , paleontologists remained convinced that jellyfish were among the animals that originated during the Welsh geological period .
“ Given their presumptively ancient stem , we would gestate to see jellyfish preserved alongside other Cambrian fauna , ” Moysiuk suppose .
Royal Ontario MuseumA slab containing two Cambrian specimen with their tentacle carry on .
former inquiry may have see grounds of medusozoans in other sites as well — specifically , in a 2007 study from University of Kansas researcher Bruce Lieberman which analyze a 505 - million - year - sometime Portuguese man-of-war found in Utah , and in a 2016 bailiwick from another squad of paleontologists describing a 521 - million - class - old jellyfish found in China ’s Yunnan Province .
However , the new study suggests that these old discoveries were not , in fact , medusozoan man-of-war but rather comb jellies , which belong to a different phylum and push themselves through the urine with hundreds of petite cilia rather than by pumping their bell - shaped bodies .
Although comb jelly and jellyfish are superficially similar , and these discoveries were equally ancient , there is a trenchant conflict between them .
That said , not all researchers are convinced by this new assessment . In fact , Lieberman has said that the Modern newspaper miss compelling evidence to relate the former discoveries to comb out jelly .
“ I ’ve been mould with the description and analysis of soft - incarnate fossils like these for decades , and [ the Utah fossils ] are among the best - preserved specimens that I ’ve ever encountered , ” he say . He added that he is sure-footed that the Utah and China fossils are most assuredly jellyfish and not comb jellies .
Regardless , Lieberman said the new paper “ really add together to the compelling soundbox of evidence indicating that medusozoans , which are a really of import clade in the oceans today , were already show by the metre of the Cambrian point . ”
investigator believe thatBurgessomedusa‘s body appraise nearly eight inch long , making it among some of the magnanimous creatures around during its clock time . It also share numerous characteristics with various modern jellyfish , but it does n’t quite align with any of them on a 1:1 scale .
“ Burgessomedusashares features with multiple modern jellyfish group but does n’t fit neatly into any of them , ” Moysiuk said . Its body is interchangeable to modern box jellyfish , but its tentacles are closer to moonshine gelatin . These similarity , Moysiuk suggested , could indicate thatBurgessomedusawas a common ancestor from which many mod jellyfish diverged .
Like modern jellyfish , Burgessomedusaalso lacked eyes , but it was likely still a top predator in its day . Evidence also suggest that it was able to hunt comparatively large prey , as one specimen was preserved with a trilobite inside its bell .
“ Burgessomedusarepresents one more major animal organic structure architectural plan that can hound its roots back to the Cambrian , ” Moysiuk said , “ a dramatic and humble reminder of how much biodiversity had already taken contour by half a billion years ago . ”
After learning about these ancient jellyfish , read about anewly discovered jellyfish species with 24 eyes . Or , interpret about thegiant phantom jellyfish observed by cruise lining guests off the coast of Antarctica .
