A recent discovery left marine researchers baffled. What everyone thought to be long gone, has been rediscovered on the bottom of Pacific Ocean. It is a symbiotic connection between two marine creatures thought to be extinct for at least 273 million years.
The mind-blowing discovery has been made at more than 300 feet deep in the ocean off the coast of Honshu and Shikoku, Japan, by a researchers team from Poland and Japan. According to Science Alert, the ‘living fossil’ are same sort of non-skeletal corals that grow from the stalk of deepsea creatures such as crinoids, or sea lilies.
“These creatures represent the first detailed records and examinations of a recent syn vivo association of a crinoid (host) and a hexacoral (epibiont),” the researcher paper reads. “Therefore analyses of these associations can shed new light on our understanding of these common Paleozoic associations.”
The results of the research have been recently published in the Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology.
Marine animals thought extinct for 273 million years found in Pacific Ocean! – WION: Symbiotic creatures thought long lost have been discovered thriving at the bottom of the ocean by scientists. The lifeforms were… https://t.co/GqWzmwzyCc #newzealand #guestposts #newzealandnews pic.twitter.com/7fiCcAQBJZ
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