German scientists have discovered an extremely rare fossil of a six-armed brittle star, fossilized at the moment it was in the process of regenerating half of its body.
According to ScienceAlert on May 16, this special fossil was excavated in 2018 from a limestone quarry in southern Germany, an area that was once a deep lagoon filled with corals and sponges. Each fossil serves as a “snapshot” of the moment a living organism was buried in an instant and then slowly turned to stone.
The fossil of the brittle star is in the process of regenerating body parts – (Photo: Gunter Schweigert).
Today, this site is a fossil garden filled with shark teeth and traces of ancient pterosaurs, crustaceans, and crocodile-like creatures from the late Jurassic period.
The brittle star fossil (Brittle star) mentioned is the first and only known specimen of a new brittle star species named Ophiactis hex, according to scientists.
Similar to starfish, brittle stars reproduce by splitting themselves in half and regenerating the missing body parts. Those brittle stars that reproduce in this manner, known as asexual reproduction, will have six arms instead of five.
This brittle star fossil is dated to be 155 million years old and is so well-preserved that the hook-shaped spines on its arms can be observed.
The excavation area of the brittle star fossil in Germany – (Photo: Gunter Schweigert).
Mr. Ben Thuy, a paleontologist at the National Museum of Natural History in Luxembourg, stated that this fossil provides outstanding evidence demonstrating the ancient evolutionary fragmentation of asteriods.
“This is an extremely rare find that provides clear evidence of asexual fragmentation”, Mr. Thuy said.
The research was published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.
