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Bizarre creature found in 200-million-year-old cocoon
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<blockquote data-quote="Opmmur" data-source="post: 62405" data-attributes="member: 13"><p><span style="font-size: 22px"><strong><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Bizarre creature found in 200-million-year-old cocoon </span></strong></span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size: 15px"><strong><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">The cocoon looks like those produced by living leeches </span></strong></span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">By Jeanna Bryner, LiveScience Managing Editor </span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">updated 12/8/2012 10:41:07 AM ET </span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size: 15px"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">The Link:<span style="color: #00ff00"> <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/50128117/ns/technology_and_science-science/#.UMVTWnewdsQ" target="_blank"><span style="color: #00ff00">Bizarre creature found in 200-million-year-old cocoon - Technology & science - Science - LiveScience | NBC News</span></a></span></span></span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size: 15px"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">About 200 million years ago, a leech released a slimy mucous cocoon that unwittingly encased and trapped a bizarre animal with a springy tail, preserving it until researchers discovered the teardrop-shaped creature in Antarctica recently. </span></span></p><ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol"><span style="font-size: 15px"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Science news from NBCNews.com </span></span></li> </ol><p><span style="font-size: 15px"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">American 3B Scientific </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 15px"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><a href="http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/07/15759322-tell-us-which-geek-gift-gets-the-goods?lite" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue"><span style="color: #00ff00">T</span><span style="color: #00ff00">ell us which geek gift gets the goods </span></span></a></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 15px"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Science editor Alan Boyle's blog: What kind of holiday gift is best-suited for a science geek? Here's your chance to decide which geeky gift suggestion takes the prize. </span></span></p><ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol"><ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol"><span style="color: #00ff00"><span style="font-size: 15px"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/50119631/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/scientist-argues-volcanoes-not-meteorite-killed-dinosaurs/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #00ff00">Scientist argues volcanoes killed dinosaurs </span></a></span></span></span></li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol"><span style="color: #00ff00"><span style="font-size: 15px"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/50123236/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/huge-icebergs-scoured-seafloor-florida-during-ice-age/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #00ff00">Icebergs scoured Florida during Ice Age </span></a></span></span></span></li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol"><span style="color: #00ff00"><span style="font-size: 15px"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/50122207/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/job-define-human-impact-planet-geological-era/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #00ff00">Human impact on planet: A geological era? </span></a></span></span></span></li> </ol></li> </ol><p><span style="font-size: 15px"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">The cocoon looks like those produced by living leeches, such as the <span style="color: #00ff00"><a href="http://www.livescience.com/14521-heck.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #00ff00">medicinal leech <em>Hirudo medicinalis</em></span></a>.</span> Encased inside was a bell animal that looked similar to species in the genus <em>Vorticella</em>; its body extends 25 microns (about the width of some human hairs) with a tightly coiled stalk about twice that long. And like all eurkaryotes, the organism was equipped with a nucleus — in this case, a large horseshoe-shaped nucleus inside the main body. (A micron is one-millionth of a meter.) </span></span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size: 15px"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">This bell animal lived during the Late Triassic Period, when the Earth was much warmer, with dense rain forests flourishing along what is today the <a href="http://www.ouramazingplanet.com/2166-images-antarctic-odyssey-majestic-transantarctic-mountains.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue"><span style="color: #00ff00">T</span><span style="color: #00ff00">ransantarctic Mountain Range </span></span></a>where it was found. At the time, Antarctica was part of the supercontinent Gondwana, though it was still located at high latitudes. </span></span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size: 15px"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Past research has suggested this coiled stalk, which is used to attach to substrates, may be one of the <span style="color: #00ff00"><a href="http://www.livescience.com/3970-high-speed-microscopic-engine.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #00ff00">fastest cellular engines known</span></a></span>, changing from a telephone wirelike structure to a tight coil at a speed of about 8 centimeters (3.1 inches) per second — the equivalent of a human being walking the across more than three football fields in one second. </span></span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size: 15px"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">[<span style="color: #00ff00"><a href="http://www.livescience.com/25343-tiny-creature-vorticella.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #00ff00"> See Photos of the Bizarre Vorticella Creature </span></a></span>] </span></span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size: 15px"><strong><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Preserving soft tissue </span></strong><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Possibly even more amazing is the fact that this soft-bodied, microscopic creature survived the vagaries of time. Preserving a soft-bodied organism like this one for so long is tricky and requires some outside intervention to keep the tissues from degrading. In this case, rather than tree resin (called amber when hardened) that preserved <span style="color: #00ff00"><a href="http://www.livescience.com/23861-fossil-dna-half-life.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #00ff00">dino DNA in the bellies of amber-trapped mosquitoes </span></a></span>in "Jurassic Park," a mucous cocoon did the trick. </span></span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size: 15px"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">"This preservation is quite bizarre, but soft-bodied organisms cannot usually become fossilized unless they are rapidly entombed in a medium that prevents further decay," study researcher and paleobotanist Benjamin Bomfleur, of the Biodiversity Institute at the <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/50128117/ns/technology_and_science-science/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #00ff00">University</span></a> of Kansas, told LiveScience. </span></span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size: 15px"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Here's how the researchers think the hasty preservation took place: "A leech secreted a mucous cocoon that was deposited under water or in wet leaf litter, somewhere in a river system which lay in present-day <span style="color: #00ff00"><a href="http://www.livescience.com/21677-antarctica-facts.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #00ff00">Antarctica</span></a></span>," Bomfleur said. This bell animal must have used its long, rapidly contracting stalk to attach itself to the cocoon soon after, becoming trapped and completely encased by the still-slimy cocoon, which hardened over hours to days. </span></span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size: 15px"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">"The cocoon with the such-enclosed bell animal then was deposited in mud that over time turned into the sedimentary layer where we found it some 200 million years later," Bomfleur explained. </span></span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size: 15px"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">The only other example of this type of preservation comes from a 125-million-year-old cocoon encasing a nematode worm and discovered in Svalbard. </span></span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size: 15px"><strong><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Identifying the bizarre creature </span></strong><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">When Bomfleur first noticed the tiny animal in samples he'd collected from Antarctica, he didn't know what he was looking at and didn't have time to consult with an expert in such microfossils, as he was working on his doctoral degree. </span></span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size: 15px"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">"Later this year, however, I finally found the time to look for someone with an expertise on freshwater microorganisms in order to get an expert opinion on the thing," Bomfleur said, adding he contacted Ojvind Moestrup of the University of Copenhagen. </span></span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size: 15px"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Bomfleur recalled Moestrup looking at the fossil and saying, "It is often very hard or impossible to identify microfossils, but this one was easy. It is the ciliate <em>Vorticella</em> and the helical structure is the stalk." </span></span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size: 15px"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Bomfleur and his colleagues detailed their research this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. </span></span></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Opmmur, post: 62405, member: 13"] [SIZE=6][B][FONT=Times New Roman]Bizarre creature found in 200-million-year-old cocoon [/FONT][/B][/SIZE] [SIZE=4][B][FONT=Times New Roman]The cocoon looks like those produced by living leeches [/FONT][/B][/SIZE] [FONT=Times New Roman]By Jeanna Bryner, LiveScience Managing Editor [/FONT] [FONT=Times New Roman]updated 12/8/2012 10:41:07 AM ET [/FONT] [SIZE=4][FONT=Times New Roman]The Link:[COLOR=#00ff00] [URL='http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/50128117/ns/technology_and_science-science/#.UMVTWnewdsQ'][COLOR=#00ff00]Bizarre creature found in 200-million-year-old cocoon - Technology & science - Science - LiveScience | NBC News[/COLOR][/URL][/COLOR][/FONT][/SIZE] [SIZE=4][FONT=Times New Roman]About 200 million years ago, a leech released a slimy mucous cocoon that unwittingly encased and trapped a bizarre animal with a springy tail, preserving it until researchers discovered the teardrop-shaped creature in Antarctica recently. [/FONT][/SIZE] [LIST=1] [*][SIZE=4][FONT=Times New Roman]Science news from NBCNews.com [/FONT][/SIZE] [/LIST] [SIZE=4][FONT=Times New Roman]American 3B Scientific [/FONT][/SIZE] [SIZE=4][FONT=Times New Roman][URL='http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/07/15759322-tell-us-which-geek-gift-gets-the-goods?lite'][COLOR=blue][COLOR=#00ff00]T[/COLOR][COLOR=#00ff00]ell us which geek gift gets the goods [/COLOR][/COLOR][/URL][/FONT][/SIZE] [SIZE=4][FONT=Times New Roman]Science editor Alan Boyle's blog: What kind of holiday gift is best-suited for a science geek? Here's your chance to decide which geeky gift suggestion takes the prize. [/FONT][/SIZE] [LIST=1] [*][LIST=1] [*][COLOR=#00ff00][SIZE=4][FONT=Times New Roman][URL='http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/50119631/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/scientist-argues-volcanoes-not-meteorite-killed-dinosaurs/'][COLOR=#00ff00]Scientist argues volcanoes killed dinosaurs [/COLOR][/URL][/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR] [*][COLOR=#00ff00][SIZE=4][FONT=Times New Roman][URL='http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/50123236/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/huge-icebergs-scoured-seafloor-florida-during-ice-age/'][COLOR=#00ff00]Icebergs scoured Florida during Ice Age [/COLOR][/URL][/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR] [*][COLOR=#00ff00][SIZE=4][FONT=Times New Roman][URL='http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/50122207/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/job-define-human-impact-planet-geological-era/'][COLOR=#00ff00]Human impact on planet: A geological era? [/COLOR][/URL][/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR] [/LIST] [/LIST] [SIZE=4][FONT=Times New Roman]The cocoon looks like those produced by living leeches, such as the [COLOR=#00ff00][URL='http://www.livescience.com/14521-heck.html'][COLOR=#00ff00]medicinal leech [I]Hirudo medicinalis[/I][/COLOR][/URL].[/COLOR] Encased inside was a bell animal that looked similar to species in the genus [I]Vorticella[/I]; its body extends 25 microns (about the width of some human hairs) with a tightly coiled stalk about twice that long. And like all eurkaryotes, the organism was equipped with a nucleus — in this case, a large horseshoe-shaped nucleus inside the main body. (A micron is one-millionth of a meter.) [/FONT][/SIZE] [SIZE=4][FONT=Times New Roman]This bell animal lived during the Late Triassic Period, when the Earth was much warmer, with dense rain forests flourishing along what is today the [URL='http://www.ouramazingplanet.com/2166-images-antarctic-odyssey-majestic-transantarctic-mountains.html'][COLOR=blue][COLOR=#00ff00]T[/COLOR][COLOR=#00ff00]ransantarctic Mountain Range [/COLOR][/COLOR][/URL]where it was found. At the time, Antarctica was part of the supercontinent Gondwana, though it was still located at high latitudes. [/FONT][/SIZE] [SIZE=4][FONT=Times New Roman]Past research has suggested this coiled stalk, which is used to attach to substrates, may be one of the [COLOR=#00ff00][URL='http://www.livescience.com/3970-high-speed-microscopic-engine.html'][COLOR=#00ff00]fastest cellular engines known[/COLOR][/URL][/COLOR], changing from a telephone wirelike structure to a tight coil at a speed of about 8 centimeters (3.1 inches) per second — the equivalent of a human being walking the across more than three football fields in one second. [/FONT][/SIZE] [SIZE=4][FONT=Times New Roman][[COLOR=#00ff00][URL='http://www.livescience.com/25343-tiny-creature-vorticella.html'][COLOR=#00ff00] See Photos of the Bizarre Vorticella Creature [/COLOR][/URL][/COLOR]] [/FONT][/SIZE] [SIZE=4][B][FONT=Times New Roman]Preserving soft tissue [/FONT][/B][FONT=Times New Roman]Possibly even more amazing is the fact that this soft-bodied, microscopic creature survived the vagaries of time. Preserving a soft-bodied organism like this one for so long is tricky and requires some outside intervention to keep the tissues from degrading. In this case, rather than tree resin (called amber when hardened) that preserved [COLOR=#00ff00][URL='http://www.livescience.com/23861-fossil-dna-half-life.html'][COLOR=#00ff00]dino DNA in the bellies of amber-trapped mosquitoes [/COLOR][/URL][/COLOR]in "Jurassic Park," a mucous cocoon did the trick. [/FONT][/SIZE] [SIZE=4][FONT=Times New Roman]"This preservation is quite bizarre, but soft-bodied organisms cannot usually become fossilized unless they are rapidly entombed in a medium that prevents further decay," study researcher and paleobotanist Benjamin Bomfleur, of the Biodiversity Institute at the [URL='http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/50128117/ns/technology_and_science-science/'][COLOR=#00ff00]University[/COLOR][/URL] of Kansas, told LiveScience. [/FONT][/SIZE] [SIZE=4][FONT=Times New Roman]Here's how the researchers think the hasty preservation took place: "A leech secreted a mucous cocoon that was deposited under water or in wet leaf litter, somewhere in a river system which lay in present-day [COLOR=#00ff00][URL='http://www.livescience.com/21677-antarctica-facts.html'][COLOR=#00ff00]Antarctica[/COLOR][/URL][/COLOR]," Bomfleur said. This bell animal must have used its long, rapidly contracting stalk to attach itself to the cocoon soon after, becoming trapped and completely encased by the still-slimy cocoon, which hardened over hours to days. [/FONT][/SIZE] [SIZE=4][FONT=Times New Roman]"The cocoon with the such-enclosed bell animal then was deposited in mud that over time turned into the sedimentary layer where we found it some 200 million years later," Bomfleur explained. [/FONT][/SIZE] [SIZE=4][FONT=Times New Roman]The only other example of this type of preservation comes from a 125-million-year-old cocoon encasing a nematode worm and discovered in Svalbard. [/FONT][/SIZE] [SIZE=4][B][FONT=Times New Roman]Identifying the bizarre creature [/FONT][/B][FONT=Times New Roman]When Bomfleur first noticed the tiny animal in samples he'd collected from Antarctica, he didn't know what he was looking at and didn't have time to consult with an expert in such microfossils, as he was working on his doctoral degree. [/FONT][/SIZE] [SIZE=4][FONT=Times New Roman]"Later this year, however, I finally found the time to look for someone with an expertise on freshwater microorganisms in order to get an expert opinion on the thing," Bomfleur said, adding he contacted Ojvind Moestrup of the University of Copenhagen. [/FONT][/SIZE] [SIZE=4][FONT=Times New Roman]Bomfleur recalled Moestrup looking at the fossil and saying, "It is often very hard or impossible to identify microfossils, but this one was easy. It is the ciliate [I]Vorticella[/I] and the helical structure is the stalk." [/FONT][/SIZE] [SIZE=4][FONT=Times New Roman]Bomfleur and his colleagues detailed their research this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. [/FONT][/SIZE] [/QUOTE]
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