The fossil of a 150 million-year-old marine creature has been in Africa. It has 10 long arms and tentacle-like claws, and it has been named after Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The creature was about 2 inches in diameter. Its nearly complete remains were dug up at a site in central western Ethiopia.
Researchers said the fossil was of a type of feather star, which are abundant on rocky bottoms of seas and oceans around the world. Named Ausichicrinites zelenskyyi, the ancient creature is closely related to sea stars, sea cucumbers, and sea urchins, they added in a paper published in The Royal Society journal Open Science.
"The fossil is extraordinarily preserved," said lead author Professor Mariusz Salamon, of the University of Silesia, Poland. "Ausichicrinites zelenskyyi had 10 massive arms and a ring of claw-like appendages near the base to grip the substrate... The animal lived 150 million years ago and shows putative (supposed) traces of arm movements."
Explaining why the fossil was named after Zelensky, Salamon told Newsweek, "It has been named in honor of Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelensky, the sixth and current president of Ukraine, for his courage and bravery in defending free Ukraine."
Feather stars occur in a variety of colors, from electrifying yellows, vibrant oranges to deep reds. Each of their arms can be up to a foot long. They sit in the water, expose their arms, and let nutrients moved by the current come to them. Feather stars then use their appendages to catch food.
One of their unique abilities is to shed their arms--similar to how lizards shed their tails--to confuse predators while they make their escape.
Speaking about this trait, Salamon said, "The specimen shows evidence of regeneration, which reinforces the hypothesis about the importance of predation in the evolution of feather stars." He added that this fossil was the first example of regeneration in a feather star.
Read more: Giant 180 million-year-old 'sea dragon' fossil found in UK water reservoir
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