For the first time, scientists have sequenced the genome at the chromosomal level of a creature that appears to have “inserted itself” into the evolutionary tree, raising suspicions about extraterrestrial origins.
The study, recently published in the scientific journal G3: Genes, Genomes, Genetics, has revealed how the “strangest creature on Earth” has transformed dramatically over 44 million years, continuously surprising the scientific community.
These creatures are remarkably intelligent compared to their relatives. They abruptly “inserted themselves” into a perplexing evolutionary tree, as if they were “beings fallen from the sky”, quite literally.
Image depicting “the hybrid of an ancient extraterrestrial” in fantasy – (Graphic: REDDIT).
A study published in 2018 by 33 renowned geneticists and biologists worldwide suggested that these creatures could be hybrids of an extraterrestrial being, with an “interplanetary” mating process occurring about 540 million years ago.
In the new study, a team of scientists led by Dr. Dalila Destanović from the University of Vienna (Austria) sequenced the genome of a common octopus (Octopus vulgaris).
“With current technologies, we can create a type of genetic map for the octopus, showing how genetic information is organized at the chromosomal level” – Dr. Destanović was quoted by Sci-News.
They identified 30 chromosomes in the studied organism’s genome, with 99.34% of the 2.8 billion base pairs organized.
By comparing it with the genomes of four other octopus species, they identified dramatic structural changes in the genome throughout evolution. They observed that chromosomes had broken apart, rearranged, and then reconnected on the same chromosome.
This complex rearrangement was noted even in species considered to be the closest relatives. This suggests that throughout the 44 million years of octopus history, their genome has undergone surprisingly dynamic evolution.
Dr. Destanović emphasized: “This discovery raises questions about the dynamics of the genome throughout their evolutionary history and opens up opportunities to investigate how this relates to their characteristics.”
Many intriguing questions remain unanswered regarding these “hybrids of extraterrestrial beings”, including the mystery of their origins from another world.
This is not a fanciful argument, as research in recent years has demonstrated that life on Earth—including ourselves—also has extraterrestrial origins.
Seeds of life were conceived somewhere in the interstellar space, brought to the young Earth by comets and asteroids, and possibly by other celestial bodies in the Solar System.
The study posits that octopuses are hybrids of extraterrestrial beings based on this idea, as at any point in the evolutionary history of the planet, a comet or another asteroid could have delivered new extraterrestrial life seeds, which then interbred with existing organisms to create “inserted” lineages into the genealogical tree of all species.
