For 430 million years , hidden under rocks in England, Cthulhu waited to be discovered. Now, finally, the fictional creature devised by HP Lovecraft has seen the light of day and is honestly much smaller than we expected.
This Cthulhu fossil is related to sea cucumbers, dating back to the Silurian period, when the first bony fish appeared. Its small three-centimeter body was completely covered in bony plates and 45 armored tentacles , which it probably used to capture food and sneak out on the seabed.
It is for these physical characteristics that the paleontologists who discovered the ‘beast’ gave it the name of Sollasina cthulhu , in honor of the famous god of the tentacles of the American writer of horror stories and science fiction: a gigantic entity worshiped by the cultists.
The tiny fossilized beast is exquisitely preserved.
Scientists from both the University of Oxford and University College London (UK) said their new “monstrous” discovery provides new insights into the evolution of this group of species.
After crushing layer after layer of rock, they were able to create a digital reconstruction of the creature’s soft body preserved for 430 million years.
“We conducted various analyzes to determine whether Sollasina Cthulhu was more closely related to sea cucumbers or sea urchins . To our surprise, the results suggest that it was an ancient sea cucumber, ”says Jeffrey Thompson. “This helps us understand the changes that occurred during the early evolution of the group, which ultimately gave rise to the forms of slugs that we see today.”
As explained in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B included in the study, like the descendants of this marine animal that still crawl along the ocean floor today, this specimen would have used its tentacles to move and catch food .
The creature’s excellent soft tissue preservation even captured elements of the hydraulic system that this group of animals use to maneuver their movements.
“Sollasina belongs to an extinct group called the opiocystioids, and this new material provides the first information on the internal structures of the group,” clarifies Imran Rahman of the University of Oxford, who led the study. “This includes an inner ring shape that has never been described in the group before . We interpret this as the first evidence of the soft tissue of the water vascular system in opiocystioids ”.
Within this system, modern starfish, sea cucumbers, and sea urchins have a system of channels connecting their many tube feet; then they move by contracting the muscles and forcing the water around the channels.
But sea cucumbers don’t have armored bodies – they are soft and squishy. This, the researchers said, suggests that the opocystioids split from the lineage that produced today’s sea cucumbers to form their own characteristics. Maybe they continued to evolve. Maybe they are still there somewhere. In R’lyeh. Waiting. Dreaming…
Referencia: A new ophiocistioid with soft-tissue preservation from the Silurian Herefordshire Lagerstätte, and the evolution of the holothurian body plan. Imran A. Rahman , Jeffrey R.Thompson, Derek E. G. Briggs , David J. Siveter , Derek J. Siveter and Mark D. Sutton . Published:10 April 2019 Proceedings of the Royal Society B. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2018.2792
