Discovery of Yujingia glutenotunica Fossil in China Rewrites Starfish Evolutionary History
Researchers have discovered exceptionally preserved fossils of a previously unknown ancient sea creature, Yujingia glutenotunica, in southwestern China. These fossils, dating back 518 million years to the Cambrian Period, are providing new insights into the evolution of starfish and their relatives. The creature, measuring between 8 and 22 millimeters long, offers remarkable details of its soft-bodied structure, including its body, gut, and appendages. Unlike many Cambrian fossils that only preserve hard parts, Yujingia glutenotunica was preserved without a mineralized skeleton, allowing scientists to examine its feeding organs. The discovery suggests that sophisticated tentacle-based feeding evolved much earlier than previously thought, before echinoderms developed their characteristic mineralized skeletons. This finding challenges the earlier hypothesis that the common ancestor of modern ambulacrarians was a worm-like creature that primarily filtered food through its pharynx. Instead, Yujingia glutenotun...
