Forget everything you thought you knew about myxozoans. (We know it’s hard, but you can do it.) Scientists sequenced the microscopic organisms’ genome and discovered that they’re actually a type of teeny tiny jellyfish. The researchers published their results in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Compared to other animals, the body of the jellyfish is as simple as it gets. It’s pretty much a bag with a single hole that serves as both mouth and anus. The bag is ringed with tentacles, and each tentacle is tipped with nematocysts, or stinging cells.
But compared to the myxozoans, most jellyfish are practically sophisticated. Myxozoa is the name of a group of more than 2000 different species of minuscule parasitic organisms that infect fish and other sea creatures. The myxozoans are incredibly primitive, made of just a few cells each. They don’t even have mouths. They do, however, have nematocysts—a defining characteristic of a jellyfish.
The little critters are “really weird,” ecologist Paulyn Cartwright said last week in a press release.
via Mental Floss
LEFT PHOTO: A. DIAMANT. RIGHT PHOTO: P. CARTWRIGHT
