Virginia Tech researcher's team discovers 'missing' sea sponges
June 05, 2024
June 05, 2024
BLACKSBURG, Virginia, June 5 -- Virginia Tech issued the following news:
At first glance, the simple sea sponge is no creature of mystery.
No brain. No gut. No problem dating it back 700 million years. Yet convincing sponge fossils only go back about 540 million years, leaving a 160 million-year gap in the fossil record.
In a paper released June 5 in the journal Nature, Virginia Tech geobiologist Shuhai Xiao and collaborators reported a 550 million-year-old . . .
At first glance, the simple sea sponge is no creature of mystery.
No brain. No gut. No problem dating it back 700 million years. Yet convincing sponge fossils only go back about 540 million years, leaving a 160 million-year gap in the fossil record.
In a paper released June 5 in the journal Nature, Virginia Tech geobiologist Shuhai Xiao and collaborators reported a 550 million-year-old . . .