PALAEONTOLOGY: Cthulhu’ fossil suggests monstrous sea cucumber

摘要

A newly discovered fossil has given insights into a monstrous relative of the sea cucumber.University of Oxford researchers created a computer-generated reconstruction of the 430 million year-old,3cm-wide fossil recovered from Herefordshire,named Sollasina cthulhu.The fossil is named for its resemblance of fictional monsters in HP Lovecraft’s fictional Cthulhu universe,owing to its multiple tubelike tentacles.Lead author of the study Dr Imran Rahman said:”Sollasina belongs to an extinct group called the ophiocistiods,and this new material provides the first information on the group’s internal structures.”Analysis was carried out to determine whether Sollasina was more closely related to sea cucumbers or sea urchins.Researchers identified an internal ring,interpreted as part of a water vascular system of canals used for feeding and movement,similar to the modern sea cucumbers.This characteristic was previously unknown in fossil echinozoans.