Sea creature’s soft side

Science - Jonathan Wood | 25 Mar 11. This beautifully preserved 525-million-year-old fossil is barely 4 cm in length, but minute details can be seen including 36 tiny tentacles along one feathery arm. Discovered in Yunnan Province in China, the new fossil belongs to an important group of primitive sea creatures that used the tentacles for feeding. The creatures secreted a substance that built up into a hard tube around their soft body, with the tentacles extending from the top of the tube to catch plankton. Previously only the tubes have been seen in detail but this new fossil clearly shows the soft parts of the body. 'Amazingly, it has exceptionally preserved soft tissues - including arms and tentacles used for feeding - giving unrivalled insight into the ancient biology of the group,' says Professor David Siveter of the Department of Earth Sciences at Oxford and the University of Leicester's Department of Geology. The fossil was discovered by researchers from Yunnan University in China and the Universities of Leicester and Oxford, and details are published in the journal Current Biology .