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Million-Year-Old Fossilized Water Flea Penis Is Earth's Oldest
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By rickyjames, Section
News
Posted on Thu Dec 4th, 2003 at 01:24:42 PM PST |
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 A
newly-discovered British fossil has been named Colymbosathon
ecplecticos,
Greek for "amazing swimmer with a large penis." This 5-millimeter-long
ancestor of modern water fleas was buried in Herefordshire volcanic ash
425 million years ago that mineralized and preserved all of its soft
body parts until the present. The gut and even the anus can be clearly
seen. Other remarkably preserved soft body
parts include gills, eyes, swimming limbs - and a penis. This makes him
the oldest fossil to bear that gender designation. Earlier fossils of
other species show dimorphism -- differences attributed to being
male and female, but
without clearly identifying who was what.
"In this case, we clearly have a male. The whole animal
is amazing," noted David
Siveter,
first author of a paper announcing the find this week in the journal
Science. "It is certainly the oldest penis in the world, that's for
certain."
Also amazing is the proof that the so-called ostracode
group of animals has changed little since the Silurian
Period
430 million to 400 million years ago, while most other species
underwent significant evolutionary redesign or disappeared altogether.
"This specimen shows what nobody has been able to show before - 425
million years of unbelievable stability in an organism," Siveter said.
"Most things that lived in the Silurian are long extinct and don't have
many living relatives." Modern bivalve scavenger relatives to C.
ecplecticos are found in virtually every aquatic environment on Earth,
from deep oceans to shallow streams, from crabs and lobsters to
more-distantly-related clams and oysters.
The fossil, preserved in volcanic ash, is so intact that the
gut and even the anus can be clearly seen.
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| Researchers
had to destroy the world's oldest penis in order to study it. They used
a technique that combining thin-film cutting with computerized data
storage. After removing the rock containing the fossil, repeated
shavings 20 micrometers thick were cut through the remains. A
photograph of each shaving was stored in a computer and later
electronically reassembled and eventually combined in cyberspace to
create a three-dimensional
image of the animal along with its soft parts. The fossil itself,
and the amazing organs it contained, is now a collection of microscope
slides.
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