The strange sea monster can be the 'ancestor' of all creatures on the planet

The strange creature lurking deep in the Earth's oceans more than half a billion years ago, seems to be the "ancestor" of all vertebrates we encounter today.

The graphic recreates the biological structure of the yunnanozoan species with features associated with modern vertebrates (Photo: Science).

This creature, called a yunnanozoan, lived in the Cambrian period, about 518 million years ago. Through recent studies, paleontologists have discovered many features in their cartilage that are almost similar to those of modern vertebrates.

This suggests that the animals of today may have had a close relationship in the family tree with the group of extinct organisms mentioned above.

"The yunnanozoan fossils may be the oldest evidence marking the early evolution of organisms on Earth, when they existed in relation to today's vertebrates," said researcher Qingyi. Tian, ​​of Nanjing University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

"Using techniques that have never been introduced before in the specimen, we have found evidence that the yunnanozoan brain dome contains cellular cartilages with a matrix of many small fibers - a feature that so far considered to be characteristic of vertebrates," said Tian.

It is known that tracking the evolution of early vertebrates is a difficult task for scientists. The reason is because after hundreds of millions of years, traces of life have been severely eroded and degraded, leading to fossils being forgotten, or not in good enough condition for analysis.

A fossilized yunnanozoan.

In some cases like the yunnanozoan, although there are good enough fossils, for many decades, scientists still wondered, because they did not know which creature this creature fit into the tree of life.

Hoping to shed some light on the matter, Tian and colleagues set out to study a total of 127 yunnanozoan fossils based on new methods from X-ray measurement, electron microscopy, and elemental mapping. energy dispersion spectrum.

Unexpectedly, the team discovered previously undiscovered secrets about the anatomy of this strange creature.

The team's study, published in the journal Science, is expected to be compelling evidence that will help shed some important information on the evolution of vertebrates on their planet. ta.