Bizarre Fossils Are Neither Plant Nor Animal, But a 'Weird Fusion' of Life [View all]

21 January 2024
By CARLY CASSELLA



Euglenid cysts. (Andreas Koutsodendris, Heidelberg University)

If you ever find yourself playing a game of twenty questions, there's a little-known life form you can pick that is sure to leave your opponent stumped.

It is neither animal, vegetable, nor mineral. It's not even a bacterium or fungi.

It's called a Euglenid – and it's a weird fusion of a bunch of different living things.

Euglenids are a group of unicellular eukaryotes that gain energy through both photosynthesis, like a plant, and through consuming other beings, like an animal.

These aquatic organisms split off from other eukaryotes roughly a billion years ago, and yet their fossil record for all that time on Earth is scarce.

Now, an international team of scientists argues that they have found ancient Euglenid fossils hiding in "an extensive paper trail" of already published scientific research.

More:
https://www.sciencealert.com/bizarre-fossils-are-neither-plant-nor-animal-but-a-weird-fusion-of-life