'Angry minion' without an anus is not actually our first ancestor, say scientists
dailystar.co.uknew study published in Nature. Previous research had suggested that a 535 million-year-old microscopic fossil called Saccorhytus coronarius was the first known member of the deuterostomes, a group of animals which vertebrates like us belong to.
However, researchers now say that the tiny, sack-like creature from China is part of the same evolutionary group as arthropods, which includes insects and crustaceans.READ MORE: Megalodon was heavier than 10 elephants and could eat whales in 'just a few bites'Philip Donoghue, a professor at the University of Bristol and the study's co-author, told the Guardian: “The [previous] paper suggested that Saccorhytus was an early member of our own evolutionary lineage, a group of animals known as the deuterostomes. "But we had specimens that were better preserved, so we knew immediately that the authors had got it flat-out wrong." The researchers used hundreds of X-ray images and powerful computers to create 3D models of the creature, giving them a better understanding of its microscopic features. "Saccorhytus is only about a millimetre in size and looks like a tiny wrinkly ball with a bunch of spines and a mouth with rings of teeth around it,” said Donoghue. “I like to describe it as an angry minion.”The holes around its mouth had previously been interpreted as pores for gills - a primitive feature of deuterostomes.
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