Oldest Known Jellyfish Fossil Ever Found Is Over 500 Million Years Old
NDTV
This ancient jellyfish closely resembles its modern counterparts, measuring about 20 centimetres long, with a bell-shaped body and over 90 tentacles around the edge.
A discovery in Canada has unveiled the oldest preserved adult jellyfish ever found, dating back 505 million years, according to the New York Times (NYT). The 182 fossils were found encased within a rock at Burgess Shale fossil site in the country. The discovery is remarkable becaue jellyfish are 95 per cent water and are prone to rapid decay.
Many of the fossils were initially collected at the Burgess Shale in the 1980s and 1990s. Scientists were amazed at the exceptionally preserved remains of various marine creatures, including jellyfish, that are no in the care of Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto.
"If you see a jellyfish outside of the water, a couple hours later it's just a ball of goo," Jean-Bernard Caron, a paleontologist at the museum, told NYT. He described the findings in a paper published on Wednesday in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. It said that these animals are the oldest swimming jellyfish known to science.
