Bizarre, Figure-Eight-Shaped, Blind Water Creature is Related to Vertebrates

Archaeologists have uncovered some bizarre fossils that may just be related to us. The 500-million-year-old blind water creatures, known was vetulicolians, may be in the same group that includes vertebrate animals, such as humans.

Vetulicolians were first discovered about 100 years ago. Alien-like in appearance, these marine creatures were filter-feeders shaped like a figure eight. With their strange anatomy, though, scientists were unable to place them accurately on the tree of life. That's why researchers took a closer look at vetulicolians in order to pin down exactly where they fell in evolutionary history.

Since they were first discovered, vetulicolians have been found in countries across the globe. In this case, the researchers examined new fossils that were discovered on Kangaroo Island off the coast of South Australia.

"Vetucolians are further evidence that life was very rich in diversity during the Cambrian period, in some aspects more than it is today, with many extra branches on the evolutionary tree," said Diego Garcia-Bellido, one of the researchers, in a news release. "They were simple yet successful creatures, large in number and in distribution across the globe, and one of the first representatives of our cousins, which include sea squirts and salps."

In this case, the researchers were able to place the vertulicolians in the same group as vertebrates.

"Although not directly relate to humans in the evolutionary line, we can confirm that these ancient water creatures are among our distant cousins," said Garcia-Bellido. "They are close relatives of vertebrates-animals with backbones, such as ourselves. Vertulicolians have a long tail supported by a stiff rod. This rod resembles a notochord, which is the precursor of the backbone and is unique to vertebrates and their relatives."

The findings reveal a bit more about these ancient animals and show where they fall in the tree of life. This, in turn, may shed some light on the process of evolution and how some species came to be.

The findings are published in the journal BMC Evolutionary Biology.