How scientists solved mystery of the ‘angry minion’ with no anus

The mystery of the ‘minion-like’ creature has been solved. Scientists have discovered that the 535 million-year-old microscopic fossil called Saccorhytus coronarius – which resembles the characters from the Minions movies – is not in fact an ancestor of humans. As per the BBC, the Saccorhytus coronarius was placed into a group, including animals with vertebrates, called the deuterostomes, but new suggests it should be put into an entirely different group of animals, as per the report. What is it? As per phys.org, the Saccorhytus is a spikey, wrinkly sack, with a large mouth surrounded by spines and holes that were thought to be pores for gills – a primitive feature of the deuterostome group, from which our own deep ancestors emerged. As per Live Science, in 2017, research concluded that the holes around its mouth were pores and potentially a precursor for gills. What does new research show? But as per Live Science, the new research team concluded it is  an ecdysozoan, a group that includes insects and marine invertebrates such as penis worms (priapulids) and mud dragons (Kinorhyncha), and which diverged from a common ancestor to humans much further back in evolutionary history. As per The Guardian, the team made the discovery after collected hundreds of additional specimens, which they used to create 3D digital models of the creature and that revealed micoscopic features in more detail. The discovery was made when the team realised that the spines and holes around the fossil’s mouth were not respiratory organs, which is what led previous researchers to err. “Saccorhytus is only about a millimetre in size and looks like a tiny wrinkly ball with a bunch of spines and a mouth with rings of teeth around it,” Philip Donoghue, a professor at the University of Bristol and co-author of the latest study published in Nature, told The Guardian. “I like to describe it as an angry minion.” “The paper suggested that Saccorhytus was an early member of our own evolutionary lineage, a group of animals known as the deuterostomes. But we had specimens that were better preserved, so we knew immediately that the authors had got it flat-out wrong,” he added. ‘Curious beast’ “Some of the fossils are so perfectly preserved that they look almost alive,”  Yunhuan Liu, a professor of paleobiology at Chang’an University, wrote as per USA Today. “Saccorhytus was a curious beast, with a mouth but no anus, and rings of complex spines around its mouth.” “It’s a bit confusing,” Emily Carlisle, a researcher who studied Saccorhytus in detail, told the BBC. “(Most) ecdysozoans have an anus, so why didn’t this one?” She further told the outlet a possibility is that an even earlier ancestor of the group did not have an anus, and that Saccorhytus evolved after that. Donoghue, a professor of paleobiology at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom, told Live Science that the team was always confident that S. coronarius needed reclassification, but joked at the idea it was a relief for some of his colleagues. “I’m sure some people were relieved that we’re not descended from wrinkly ball sacs,” he said. With inputs from agencies Read all the  Latest News ****,  Trending News ****,  Cricket News ****,  Bollywood News ****,  India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook****,  Twitter and  Instagram****.