Marine biologists have identified two unexampled species of sea - live , mushroom - shaped creatures that do n’t belong to any known taxonomic compartmentalisation . Say hello to a totally new genus : Dendrogramma .
Back in 1986 , the author of the new study pulled two discrete organisms from deepness of 400 and 1,000 meter along the south - east Australian continental slope . The mushroom - like being were multicellular and mostly non - symmetrical , with a dumb layer of jellylike cloth between the outer cutis and inner stomach cellular phone stratum . The two clear-cut species could n’t be slot into an existing phylum , so the researchers had to create a new one .
The hierarchy of biological classification ’s eight major taxonomic social status looks like this :
Life->Domain->Kingdom->Phylum->Class->Order->Family->Genus->Species
Just to give you an idea of how rare it is to find a new lineage , it ’s only happen two or three times in the preceding 15 to 20 class .
Called Dendrogramma , it ’s a reference to dendrograms , the tree diagram used in biology to illustrate evolutionary relationships between organisms . The two species themselves have been distinguish enigmatica and discoides , which suggest at their strange character and shape .
Interestingly , the scientists institute similarity between these organisms and members of Ctenophora and Cnidaria , which suggest a potential congress . They also observe similarities to 600 million twelvemonth - old Pre - Welsh life forms that are now extinct — potentially other but failed attempts at multi - cellular life story .
Read the intact bailiwick at PLOS : “ Dendrogramma , New Genus , with Two New Non - Bilaterian Species from the Marine Bathyal of Southeastern Australia ( Animalia , Metazoa incertae sedis ) – with similarity to Some Medusoids from the Precambrian Ediacara “ .
Top image : Jean Just et al / Plos|One / Jorgen Olesen .
BiologyMarine biologySciencetaxonomyZoology
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