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450-million year old jellyfish ancestor looks like a flailing carwash tubeman

Popular Science·Andrew Paul·about 1 month ago
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Interpretive drawings of Paleocanna tentaculum as living organisms: depiction of individual polyps living in single tubes, as well as clusters of two or three tubes attached together. Credit: Louis-Philippe Bateman / McGill University Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. Jellyfish are delicate, almost ghostly creatures. But under just the right circumstances, these spectral invertebrates can still tell stories long after their death. Not far from Quebec City, Canada marine paleontologists have discovered a new species of invertebrate that swayed in Paleozoic ocean currents over 450 million years ago. Paleocanna tentaculum may not look much like its living descendants, but according to a team of researchers writing in the Journal of Paleontology , the tubular polyp is more closely related to today’s jellyfish than its other ancient cousins.…

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