A tiny marine animate being that was opine to be nonextant for the retiring four million years has just been found survive in New Zealand .
This “ living fogy ” is tentacled polyp calledProtulophila , and they were previously only found in fossil deposit in the northerly cerebral hemisphere , specifically Europe and the Middle East . scientist think their account extended back 170 million years into the Middle Jurassic , before they sound extinct in the Pliocene ; the last ghost of them were found in four - million - class - onetime rocks . Paleontologists call up thatProtulophilawas a colonial hydrozoan ( resembling a Snake ) that ’s related to corals and ocean anemones . The animal formed a web of channels and microscopic maw inside the chalky tubes of marine worms call in serpulids .
This year , fossil model were discovered by researchers from New Zealand ’s National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research in Australia , London ’s Natural History Museum , and the University of Oslo as they were conducting fieldwork at Wanganui on the west sea-coast of North Island .
They determine fossil evidence of tinyProtulophilapolyps in a electronic connection of holes in a worm electron tube from young rock ( geologically speaking ) that are less than a million years old . Pictured above , a run down negatron microscope ( SEM ) image of a resin cast of the polyp bedchamber and connections ofProtulophilain a dirt ball tube .
After findingProtulophilain young rocks in the southerly cerebral hemisphere , the squad see tubeworms salt away in NIWA ’s collection and found exercise of preservedProtulophilathat had been overlooked . These samples were pull in in 2008 in about 20 meters of H2O near the township of Picton on the northeast box of South Island . Here ’s an artist ’s impression of livingProtulophilapolyps with tentacle pop from openings in a worm tube .
“ Our police detective piece of work has also suggested the possibility thatProtulophilamay be the miss polyp phase of a hydroid in which only the tiny planktonic man-of-war degree is known,”NIWA ’s Dennis Gordonsays in anews release . “ Many hydroid species have a two - stage aliveness hertz and often the two stages have never been match . Our discovery may thus entail that we are work two puzzles at once . ”
The team is hop to collect brisk samples from Queen Charlotte Sound near Picton for factor sequence .
[ ViaNIWA ]
Images : Paul Taylor , Natural History Museum , London ( top , middle ) & Dennis Gordon and Erika MacKay , NIWA ( illustration )
