Siphusauctum Gregarium, Tulip-Shaped Creature, Fossil Discovered In Canadian Rockies Shale

By Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Staff Writer:

A weird tulip-shaped creature discovered fossilized in 500-million-year-old rocks had a feeding system like no other known animal, researchers reported Wednesday.

The animal was a filter feeder, with a tulip-shaped body and a stem that anchored it to the seafloor. Named Siphusauctum gregarium, the creature was about the length of a dinner knife at 8 inches (20 cm) and had a bulbous structure that contained its feeding system and gut.

The fossil was discovered in a rock layer called the Burgess Shale in the Canadian Rockies.

"Most interesting is that this feeding system appears to be unique among animals," study researcher Lorna O'Brien, a doctoral candidate at the University of Toronto, said in a statement. "Recent advances have linked many bizarre Burgess Shale animals as primitive members of many animal groups that are found today, but Siphusauctum defies this trend. We do not know where it fits in relation to other organisms."

Siphusauctum lived in gardenlike clusters on the seafloor, with some fossil slabs containing the remains of more than 65 individuals. Researchers have discovered more than 1,100 individual specimens, earning the fossil area the nickname "the tulip beds."

You can follow LiveScience senior writer Stephanie Pappas on Twitter @sipappas. Follow LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter @livescience and on Facebook.

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Comments

[thaneb]

06:55 PM on 01/22/2012

Seems similar to some Crinoids (sea lily) of which this was a contemporary in the fossil record. Those animals, crinoids, still exist today. Most only have a vestigial stalk but deep ocean varieties retain the stalk. Evolutionary "cousins"?

[mamacat]

04:50 PM on 01/21/2012

Not much info in this article.

[karen lyons kalmenson]

11:05 AM on 01/21/2012

our planet never ceases to amaze

[nitwitsRus]

11:02 AM on 01/21/2012

& ok ok
i got
off-topic again

[nitwitsRus]

10:57 AM on 01/21/2012

Black shale results from the presence of greater than one percent carbonaceous material and indicates a reducing environment
sounds about right for
oil?

[nitwitsRus]

10:51 AM on 01/21/2012

is THAT
the SAME region as
The KeyStone thing?

[nitwitsRus]

10:43 AM on 01/21/2012

& maybe
The United States Of America
weren't the FIRST
meltin' pot?

[nitwitsRus]

10:40 AM on 01/21/2012

NOW
i'm guessin'
insteada
missin' LINK
it should be
LINKS?

[nitwitsRus]

10:35 AM on 01/21/2012

ok
so
animals&plants
have a
common ancestor?

[jscratz]

05:18 AM on 01/21/2012

This is the first time I´ve checked out hp´s Green section. Some educated and informing posts here. Takes 2 minutes to see that, unlike the political section, this part of HP is baggerbörg free.

[UnderTheHedgeWeGo]

01:10 PM on 01/22/2012

Reading any article on evolution may give you an unpleasant surprise.

[jscratz]

05:22 PM on 01/22/2012

lol !!!

[OzoneTom]

12:33 AM on 01/21/2012

Love anything new about the Burgess Shale@

[larrykat]

12:27 PM on 01/20/2012

A simple question someone here can surely answer: How do we know it was an animal and not a plant?

[Ouchmyeye]

08:19 PM on 01/20/2012

The very simplest marine vascular plants (multi-celled with roots/stems, smaller and simpler than this fossil) don't first appear in rocks until 100 million years after these fossils. (These animals are dependent on bacteria and single-celled algae)

[ColleenHarper]

03:10 AM on 01/21/2012

Anything with a digestive system is an animal. The closest plant approximation would be pitcher plants and Venus fly traps which either drown insects in a soupy bath or excrete digestive enzymes out of leaf pores. Either way, plant "digestion" takes place on the topological exterior of the plant.

[hazbro24]

12:04 PM on 01/20/2012

They've got them upside down. Those are Tom Brady's Uggs.

[Counterglow]

11:33 AM on 01/20/2012

Funny, you'd think a critter like that could have survived the flood.

[Chipher]

06:22 AM on 01/20/2012

Fossil poppies. Duhh.

[mzrecycle]

07:43 AM on 01/20/2012

But they're animals, not flowers.