Fossil of a 430-million-year-old sea creature found by scientists

News24xx.com - A fossil of a 430-million-year-old sea creature was found in Herefordshire, Britain. It had tentacles longer than its own body.

The creature is named Sollasina cthulhu, after the fictional sea monster Cthulhu by American author H.P. Lovecraft. This animal is smaller than the fictional monster but just as frightening.

“Although the fossil is just 3 [centimeters] wide, its many long tentacles would have made it appear quite monstrous to other small sea creatures alive at the time. It is thought that these tentacles, or ‘tube feet’, were used to capture food and crawl over the seafloor,” a press release said, as cited from Fox News.

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A study revealed that Sollasina cthulhu was a type of sea cucumber. Before this, the researchers had thought that it was a type of sea urchins.

“To our surprise, the results suggest it was an ancient sea cucumber. This helps us understand the changes that occured during the early evolution of the group, which ultimately gave rise to the slug-like forms we see today,” said the study’s co-author, Dr. Jeffrey Thompson.

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