Sea anemones have an abundant history and have actually been around for millions of years, with fossil records dating back to the early days of the animal kingdom.
The fossils come from the 310-million-year-old Mazon Creek fossil deposits of northern Illinois. Mazon Creek is a world-famous Lagerstätte, a term used by paleontologists to describe a website with exceptional fossil preservation. An ancient delta enabled the in-depth preservation of the Mazon Creek soft-bodied organisms since millions of anemones and other animals were rapidly buried in muddy sediments.
Foster reported these jellyfish had a special function found in no living jellyfish.
Sea Anemones are lovely and captivating marine animals that are typically related to coral reefs. They belong to the phylum Cnidaria and are close loved ones of jellyfish and corals. They have a soft, fleshy body and are normally anchored to a surface by their basal disc. Sea polyps have an abundant history and have been around for countless years, with fossil records going back to the early days of the animal kingdom.
Regardless of being plentiful on the ocean floor, sea polyps are amongst the most evasive fossils due to their soft bodies lacking hard parts that can be easily fossilized. A group of paleontologists has actually just recently discovered that countless sea polyp fossils have actually been hiding in plain sight for practically 50 years.
According to a paper recently published in the journal Papers in Palaeontology, University of Illinois Chicagos Roy Plotnick and his group have found that fossils formerly thought to be jellyfish were in fact sea anemones. To do so, they merely turned the ancient animals upside down.
” Anemones are essentially flipped jellyfish. This study demonstrates how a simple shift of a psychological image can cause originalities and analyses,” said Plotnick, UIC professor emeritus of earth and ecological sciences and the studys lead author.
The fossils originate from the 310-million-year-old Mazon Creek fossil deposits of northern Illinois. Mazon Creek is a world-famous Lagerstätte, a term utilized by paleontologists to explain a website with exceptional fossil preservation. Because millions of anemones and other animals were quickly buried in muddy sediments, an ancient delta permitted the in-depth conservation of the Mazon Creek soft-bodied organisms.
Essexella, a 310-million-year-old fossil sea anemone from Illinois. Credit: Papers in Palaeontology
” These fossils are much better preserved than Twinkies after an armageddon. In part thats because a lot of them burrowed into the seafloor as they were being buried by a rainy avalanche of mud,” stated study co-author James Hagadorn, a professional on unusual fossil conservation at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.
By far the most typical fossil at Mazon Creek is the type understood to regional recreational fossil collectors as “the blob,” according to Plotnick, who notes that such blobs were frequently nondescript and so typical that many were discarded or cost a couple of dollars at local flea markets. Avocational collectors donated almost all of the specimens in museum collections.
He chose that they were jellyfish and named them Essexella asherae. Foster reported these jellyfish had a distinct function discovered in no living jellyfish.
Plotnick said that Foster also recommended that a small snail in some cases found in the skirt was a predator, comparable to snails that take advantage of jellyfish in modern-day oceans.
In their brand-new paper, the paleontologists took a fresh appearance at Essexella by examining countless museum specimens.
” It rapidly ended up being obvious that not only it wasnt a jellyfish, however turned upside down it was plainly an anemone, probably one that burrowed into the seafloor. The bell was in fact a broadened muscular foot used to wiggle the polyp into the seafloor,” Plotnick said.
The tough “curtain” was the barrel-shaped body of the polyp. Another fossil jellyfish species that looked like a daisy ended up to represent rare polyps squashed from leading to bottom like one may stomp an aluminum can.
” Although the majority of these fossils are preserved as disintegrating blobs that look like a piece of utilized gum on the sidewalk, some specimens are so magnificently protected that we can even see the muscles that the polyps used to bend and contract their bodies,” stated study co-author Graham Young, a specialist on fossil jellyfish from the Manitoba Museum.
The researchers describe that the wide array of preservation seen in Essexella specimens was due to the different durations that dead anemones rested on the seafloor before burial. The snail was not a predator, however a scavenger on the carcasses.
” When jellies like Essexella wash up onto the beach, they end up being a veritable beachside buffet, being snacked on by snails and other creatures like we see in this fossil deposit,” Young said.
The team also recommended that a common trace fossil from the exact same period, long thought to be a polyp burrow, was made by an animal comparable to Essexella. Since Essexella is so plentiful, it might have lived in large aggregations on the sea floor, they report.
Referral: “An abundant sea polyp from the Carboniferous Mazon Creek Lagerstatte, USA” by Roy E. Plotnick, Graham A. Young and James W. Hagadorn, 8 March 2023, Papers in Palaeontology.DOI: 10.1002/ spp2.1479.
