Is This The Oldest Jellyfish Fossil Ever Discovered?
Jellyfish are one of the oldest types of creatures to ever roam around the Earth. And recently in a fossil-rich area of the Canadian Rockies, paleontologists discovered what could be the oldest species ever discovered.
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00:00Jellyfish are one of the oldest types of creatures to ever roam around the Earth, and recently
00:09in a fossil-rich area of the Canadian Rockies, paleontologists discovered what could be the
00:13oldest species ever discovered.
00:16This is what experts say are the fossilized remains of the Burgessomedusa fasciformis,
00:21a species of predatory jellyfish that lived some 505 million years ago, and they are related
00:27to sea anemones and even coral.
00:29This particular fossil is a clear indicator that jellyfish as we know them had already
00:33evolved even hundreds of millions of years before the dinosaurs walked the Earth.
00:37The researchers say that despite being 95% water, the jellyfish were still capable of
00:42grabbing prey to feast on, with the researchers adding quote, Burgessomedusa adds to the complexity
00:47of the Cambrian foot webs, and like Anomalocaris, which lived in the same environment, these
00:52jellyfish were efficient swimming predators.
00:55Experts say that finding jellyfish fossils is extremely rare, as fossilized remains are
00:59usually formed from hard tissue, of which jellyfish have none, meaning their evolutionary
01:03history is not very well understood, and highlights just what a momentous discovery this truly
01:09is.