Scientists Relieved To Discover Mysterious Creature Is Not Humanity’s Earliest Ancestor



The mysterious microscopic species thought to be the origin of humans actually belongs to a separate family tree, according to a global research team.

The Saccorhytus is a basic characteristic of the deuterostome group, from which our own deep ancestors arose. It is a spikey, wrinkled sack with a large mouth surrounded by spines and holes that were thought to be pores for gills.

However, a careful examination of fossils from China that are 500 million years old revealed that the holes around the mouth are actually the bases of spines that split during fossil preservation, finally illuminating the evolutionary relationship between the microfossil Saccorhytus and its larger relatives.

Saccorhytus is thought by the researchers to be an ecdysozoan. Thanks to Philip Donoghue and others.

Yunhuan Liu, a professor of palaeobiology at Chang'an University in Xi'an, China, claims that some of the fossils are so wonderfully preserved that they almost appear to be living. Sacrohytus was an odd creature with a mouth but no anus and rings of intricate spines surrounding its mouth.

The discoveries, which were just published in the journal Nature, significantly alter the early evolutionary tree and our comprehension of how life first began.

The microscopic internal and external characteristics of this minuscule relic reveal Saccorhytus' actual lineage. With the aid of modern computers and hundreds of slightly varied X-ray photos, a complete 3D digital model of the fossil could be created.

According to researcher Emily Carlisle from the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol, "Saccorhytus is no exception to the rule that fossils can be rather challenging to interpret. We had to base our research of the fossils on a synchrotron, a kind of particle accelerator. Intense X-Rays from the synchrotron can be used to take precise pictures of the fossils. We created a 3D digital model of the fossils using hundreds of X-Ray photos at slightly varied angles and a supercomputer, which displays the minute details of its interior and external components.

The digital models demonstrated that a body layer extending through the mouth's surrounding pores closed them, forming spines. According to Huaqiao Zhang of the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, "We believe they would have helped Saccorhytus capture and process its prey."

Saccorhytus is thought to be an ecdysozoan, a class of animals that includes nematodes and arthropods. According to Professor Philip Donoghue of the University of Bristol's School of Earth Sciences, who co-led the study, "we explored many potential groups that Saccorhytus might be connected to, including the corals, anemones, and jellyfish which also have a mouth but no anus." Our computational investigation examined the anatomy of Saccorhytus with every other extant group of animals in order to answer the issue, coming to the conclusion that they are related to the arthropods and their relatives, which is the group to which insects, crabs, and roundworms belong.

An amazing characteristic of this microscopic, ancient organism is the absence of anus in Saccorhytus. Although the alternative route of digestive waste (out of the mouth, rather unfavorably) immediately comes to mind, this characteristic is crucial for a basic reason in evolutionary biology. Understanding how the anus emerged—and occasionally vanished—helps us comprehend how animal body designs evolved. Saccorhytus' transition from deuterosome to ecdysozoan entails removing a vanished anus from the deuterosome case history and adding it to the ecdysozoan case history.

"Given that the arthropod group has a through-gut that extends from the mouth to the anus, this is a truly unexpected outcome. According to Shuhai Xiao from Virginia Tech, USA, who co-led the study, Saccorhytus's participation in the group suggests that it has regressed in evolutionary terms by losing the anus its ancestors would have inherited. Saccorhytus' exact place in the tree of life is still unknown, but it could represent the original state from which all the members of this diverse group descended.

By UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL 

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