Scientists have made an incredible discovery, scientists have discovered a 155 million year old creature that had the ability to clone itself. According to a study conducted on the discovery of this strange creature, this starfish-like creature had six arms and could clone itself from its body. According to Science Alert, a one-of-a-kind fossil was excavated in 2018 from a limestone deposit in Germany that was once a deep lagoon filled with coral meadows and sponge beds. The researchers said it is the only known specimen of the new species of brittle star, which they have named Ophiactis hex.
strange creature found
Clonal fragmentation allowed organisms to produce genetically identical offspring by breaking off parts of their bodies and regrowing them, a process called fission. Paleontologist Dr. “Although the biology and ecology of clonal fragmentation are relatively well understood, virtually nothing is known about the evolutionary and geological history of that phenomenon,” Ben Thuy describes in the new paper. Is.”
The fossil is 155 years old
This is important because scientists do not know the exact time when cloning was first developed. The 155-million-year-old fossil is said to be so well preserved that all of the hook-shaped arm spines are visible. It was named after the magical supercomputer in one of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels, a machine capable of thinking the unimaginable.
quite a rare creature
Dr. Thuy and his team said in the study that, while skeletons of ophiuroids with severed hands frozen in the process of regeneration are relatively common in the fossil record, cases of half-bodied individuals with regenerated hands are extremely rare. They further stated “To the best of our knowledge, the specimen described in the present paper is only the second case so far known, and the first case for which regeneration actually seems to be associated with sixfold isomerism and clonal fragmentation.”
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