450-Million-Year-Old Fossils Reveal Strange, Tube-Dwelling Jellyfish Relative

Paleontologists have identified a new genus and species of soft-bodied, tubicolous polyp medusozoan from well-preserved specimens found about 50 km northeast of Quebec City in Canada. Depiction of Paleocanna tentaculum individuals living in single tubes, as well as clusters of two or three tubes attached together. Image credit: Ramirez-Guerrero et al., doi: 10.1017/jpa.2025.10211. “Jellyfish and…

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Ancient Tidal Flats Were Busier Than We Thought

New trace fossil discoveries from the half-billion-year-old Cambrian tidal flats of Wisconsin at a site called Blackberry Hill continue to paint the picture of some of the earliest animals to set foot on land and what they might have been eating. The mollusk trail Climactichnites blackberriensis (Cb) presumably stopping to eat a scyphozoan (jellyfish) that…

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