Paleontologists Make 'One in a Million' Discovery of Soft Tissue Preserved in 450-Million-Year-Old Fossil
The find is only the second known case of crinoid soft tissue preservation and gives scientists new evidence about ancient reef ecology.
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7 Articles
450-Million-Year-Old Sea Lily Fossil Preserves Soft Tissue Against the Odds
A feather star crinoid. Credit: NOAA Photo library / Wikimedia Commons / Public domain A rare ancient fossil of a sea lily discovered by researchers at the University of Oklahoma is providing an unprecedented look at one of the earliest animals to thrive in Earth’s oceans more than 450 million years ago. The fossil belongs to an ancient crinoid, an early relative of modern starfish and sea urchins. Often called “sea lilies” because of their flow…
Paleontologists make 'one in a million' discovery of soft tissue preserved in 450-million-year-old fossil
Before the oldest dinosaur, before animals or even plants had expanded onto dry land, ancient relatives of starfish called crinoids, resembling stalked sea flowers, were among the first creatures to flourish in Earth's earliest coral reefs more than 450 million years ago. The study of fossilized crinoids helps scientists understand how these animals evolved and offers rare insight into the origins of complex life.
Researchers at the University of Oklahoma report the discovery of the oldest fossilized soft tissue known in a crinoid, a marine animal that lived more than 450 million years ago.
Fossilized soft tissue, older than the oldest known dinosaur of more than 200 million years, has been identified in a preserved crinoid at the Musée de paleontologie de Montréal. This discovery, made not on the ground but in a museum collection, is only the second known example of soft tissue preserved in [...]
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