News Paleontology

This bizarre ancient critter has been kicked out of a group that includes humans

New imaging that revealed its spiny minion-like look led to its reclassification

a 3-D reconstruction of Saccorhytus coronarius, which looks like a purple spiky cylinder with a large mouth

Fossil imaging used to create this 3-D reconstruction of the extinct, roughly half-millimeter-long Saccorhytus coronarius — seen from its front (left) and back (right) — helped lead to the reclassification of the critter.

Y. Liu et al/Nature 2022

By Anna Gibbs

No ifs, ands or butts about it: A teeny roughly 530-million-year-old critter that lacks an anus is not, as previously thought, the oldest member of a wide-ranging animal group that includes everything from starfish to humans.