New Mushroom-Shaped Creatures at the Bottom of the Sea May be an Earlier Branch of Life

Scientists have discovered two new species that dwell at the bottom of the ocean. They've found sea-dwelling, mushroom-shaped organisms that may just represent an earlier branch on the tree of life.

In 1986, scientists collected organisms at 400 and 1000 meters deep on the south-eastern Australian continental slope. It's only now, though, that the scientists have isolated the two types of mushroom-shaped organisms that they previously couldn't classify into an existing phylum. The organisms themselves were preserved in neutral formaldehyde, which is how the researchers are still able to examine the species after all this time.

The new organisms are multicellular and mostly non-symmetrical. They have a dense layer of gelatinous material between the outer skin cell and the inner stomach cell layers. Looking like jelly-like undersea mushrooms, the new species were classified in a new genus, Dendrogramma enigmatica and Dendrogramma discoides and in the new family Dendrogrammatidae.

The new species are probably most closely related to members of Ctenophora and Cnidaria due to their similarities. In addition, the scientists found similarities to 600 million-year-old Pre-Cambrian extinct life forms, suggested by some to be early but failed attempts at multi-cellular life. In fact, the mushroom-like creatures could represent an early branch of the tree of life.

Currently, the scientists are attempting to gather new samples of these organisms for further study. This, in turn, could provide further insight into their relationship to other organisms, which could shed new light on the process of evolution.

The findings are published in the journal PLOS One.