Cigar-Shaped Creature from 250 Thousand Year Ago
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Jumat, 19 Oktober 2018 23:06 WIB
TEMPO.CO, London – A new fossilized, cigar-shaped sea creature that lived about 520 million years ago has recently been discovered in Morocco.
The newfound species, Helicocystis moroccoensis, has "characteristics that place it as the most primitive echinoderm that has fivefold symmetry," said study co-author Andrew Smith, a paleontologist at the Natural History Museum in London.
Smith further explained that modern echinoderm usually has a five-point symmetrical body, such as a starfish. The primitive sea creature, however, can change its body shape from slender to stumpy.
"It is a transitional animal that could explain how early echinoderms evolved their unique body shape," Smith said.
LIVESCIENCE | MAHARDIKA SATRIA HADI
