Posted on November 21, 2008  Comments (0)

Discovery of Giant Roaming Deep Sea Protist Provides New Perspective on Animal Evolution
Biologist Mikhail “Misha” Matz and his colleagues recently discovered the grape-sized protists and their complex tracks on the ocean floor near the Bahamas. DNA analysis confirmed that the giant protist found by Matz and his colleagues in the Bahamas is Gromia sphaerica, a species previously known only from the Arabian Sea.

Matz says the protists probably move by sending leg-like extensions, called pseudopodia, out of their cells in all directions. The pseudopodia then grab onto mud in one direction and the organism rolls that way, leaving a track. Hr says the giant protists’ bubble-like body design is probably one of the planet’s oldest macroscopic body designs, which may have existed for 1.8 billion years.

“I personally think now that the whole Precambrian may have been exclusively the reign of protists,” says Matz. “Our observations open up this possible way of interpreting the Precambrian fossil record.”

He says the appearance of all the animal body plans during the Cambrian explosion might not just be an artifact of the fossil record. There are likely other mechanisms that explain the burst-like origin of diverse multicellular life forms.

Single-Celled Giant Upends Early Evolution

Related: Lancelet Genome Provides Answers on Evolution – MicroRNAs Emerged Early in Evolution – Fossils of Sea Monster – Sea Urchin Genome