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Stopped reading at 500 million.
http://www.foxnews.com/science/2014/...tcmp=obnetwork
500-million-year-old swimming filter-feeders called vetulicolians have been a mystery since their discovery more than a century ago.
Newfound fossils may solve a century-long mystery over the iden y of a bizarre 500-million-year-old animal.
Strange figure-8 shaped creatures from the Cambrian Period are actually very distant cousins of humans, according to a new study. These vetulicolians, as they are known, appear to have possessed a notochord, a hollow nerve structure just like modern vertebrates, including humans.
"It finally puts to rest the position of this weird-looking group of animals," study researcher Diego Garcia-Bellido, an invertebrate paleontologist at the University of Adelaide in Australia and an honorary research associate at the South Australian Museum, wrote in an email to Live Science. The findings also suggest that chordates, or creatures with notochords, were diverse and successful from the beginning of animal evolution, he said. [Gallery: See Images of the Bizarre Swimming Animals]
Weird life
Vetulicolians were truly bizarre: They lacked eyes, but had a wide mouth and a segmented tail. Like miniature whale sharks, these early animals swam through the oceans, filter-feeding off plankton and other microscopic tasties. Fourteen species have been found in the fossil record since 1911, including specimens from Greenland, southern China and western Canada.
Now, Garcia-Bellido's team has discovered a new species of this group on Kangaroo Island, Australia, a hotspot for Cambrian-age fossils with soft parts like musclesand guts preserved in stone. They dubbed their find Nesonektris aldridgei. "Nesonektris" is the Greek word for "island swimmer," while "aldridgei" honors late University of Leicester geologist Aldridge, who studied vetulicolians extensively.
The most complete specimen of the new species measures about 4.9 inches long; most of the 150 or so fossils the researchers found were fragmented into tails and bodies, with tails usually measuring around 3.5 in. long. It was in these tails that the researchers noticed something very strange.
Running through the tails were long, rodlike structures. They might have been part of the gut, but they were unusually long and wide, the researchers reported in September in the journal BMC Evolutionary Biology. More mysteriously, the rods appeared segmented into strange block-shaped structures.
"This finding is inconsistent with it being a gut (which is a hollow tube), but consistent with the way a cartilage (notochord) would break, which allowed us to realize where the group might belong in the tree of life," Garcia-Bellido said.
Tied by a chord
Notochords are present in the embryos of all vertebrates, acting as a cartilaginous sort of skeletal support before the bones form. Some boneless invertebrates, including filter-feeding sea squirts, retain the notochord throughout life. All animals with notochords (vertebrates included) are called chordates.
By comparing the Kangaroo Island fossils with animals such as sea stars, sea squirts, jellyfishlike salps and vertebrates, the researchers were able to position the vetulicolians as close relatives of tunicates, a group made up of sea squirts and salps. This puts vetulicolians in the same chordate category as vertebrates, including humans not humans' direct ancestors, Garcia-Bellido said, but "cousins."
Paleontologists will need to re-evaluate other vetulicolian species in search of notochords, Garcia-Bellido said. The ultimate goal is to reconstruct the family tree of some of the first animals ever to evolve.
"On our part, we will continue to excavate the [Kangaroo Island] locality, searching for more clues about the oldest animals in the world," he said.
Stopped reading at 500 million.
Because everyone knows the Earth is 6,000 years old!
"Strange figure-8 shaped creatures from the Cambrian Period are actually very distant cousins of humans, according to a new study."
So you read more.
"Strange figure-8 shaped creatures from the Cambrian Period are actually very distant cousins of humans, according to a new study."
It's weird that you don't believe in God enough to follow what you say are his teachings tbh.
roberto has been knockin' it outta the park lately
Do you understand why they are saying that?"Strange figure-8 shaped creatures from the Cambrian Period are actually very distant cousins of humans, according to a new study."
Scientists penetrate the fishy history of sex as we know it
According to new findings detailed this week in Nature, scientists have made major headway unearthing the mysterious history of penetrative sex, but it’s not pretty.
Researchers have found that one of the earliest vertebrates to copulate, a fish known as the Microbrachius i, which inhabited European rivers approximately 385 million years ago, was one of the first to show anatomical distinctions between males and females. John Long, a professor of paleontology at Flinders University in Australia, says males displayed a “tube of bone” less than 2cm long, which he and his colleagues believe was used to transmit sperm to females via a corresponding appendage. In a report for the Conversation, Long explains just how the armored ancient creatures got down:
It’s bizarre that these tiny fishes mated from a sideways position, the male and female resting alongside each other. They likely intertwined their bony jointed pectoral appendages (arms) using the rows of hooks on their inside edge. The outside arms could have helped them manoeuvre their large claspers into the mating position. With their hooked “arms” interlocked, the act of copulation in these fishes somewhat resembled square dancing the do-si-do.
The female’s paired genital plates bore a roughened surface, a bit like a cheese grater, for the male claspers to latch on to. Once the male’s clasper was in the mating position only the tip could be inserted inside the cloaca of the female to deposit sperm.
Square dancing. Cheese graters. Sexy.
http://www.salon.com/2014/10/20/scie...as_we_know_it/
It's not 4.6 Billion.
Uh yes it is.
Why.... because you read it in a book?
Post the evidence.
hey it looks just like mouse
do you actually watch the videos you post, or do you just hit control-v and worry about it later?Why.... because you read it in a book?
Post the evidence.
Of all the links you could have used to support your propaganda you choose "Scientific American"?
Not only do they filter out any disagreeing comments people post on their site they charge you money to read the entire articles they post and are always trying to sell books.
One of the books they are pushing is "The New Science of Human Origins"
Awash in fresh insights, scientists have had to revise virtually every chapter of the human story
http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...human-origins/
They are claiming the theory of "Evolution" has to be rewritten thanks for proving my point all along!
http://www.scientificamerican.com/ma...sa/2014/09-01/
The Irony.....
The theory of evolution is evolving. Weird.
you did well
you would not have understood the rest, more time for your prayers tbh
lol, don't get asshurt you french clown.
"Strange figure-8 shaped creatures from the Cambrian Period are actually very distant cousins of humans, according to a new study."
robdiaz getting owned per par
Lol. yeah no. quit being a got.robdiaz getting owned per par
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