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Mushroom-like Sea Creature Found in Australia, Researchers ask for help in classifying it

| Sep 10, 2014 09:32 AM EDT

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Seems the mushrooms from Mario Bros. have been working under water. A mushroom-shaped creature has been found and they are debating where it belongs.

Another unlikely creature has been found in Australia back in 1986 and experts could not conclude if it should be classified as a sea creature or part of the tree family.

The Dendrogramma enigmatica and Dendrogramma discoides are described as creatures with a wide disc and a long stalk with a mouth.

The team of Jorgen Olesen from the University of Copenhagen has run a research about the said species and has published it on PLOS One, an academic journal.

Olesen said that finding such creature is extremely rare and it may have happened only four times in one century. The researchers added that the species might be from the early evolution. They said it was an "ancient organism". They said that it resembled those of extinct Precambrian organisms that were present around 600 million years ago.

Olesen and his team said that they wanted to classify it under the animal kingdom. However, they still can't put their finger into which it might belong to.

Olesen noted that organisms are sorted by their characteristics then classified into kingdoms such as animal, bacteria, plants and fungi.

They have found out that the Dendrogramma is multicellular so it cannot fall under the category of bacteria.

It's body design is not symmetrical like most animals are and it's body is basically gelatinous that is likened to a jellyfish. However, it does not have telltale features.

They researchers also cannot study these species via examining its DNA. The organisms were preserved using neutral formaldehyde and ethanol leaving their DNAs totally damaged.

They still have not classified where the species belongs and they honestly said that they published the research because they wanted to ask for help from other scientists and experts. For almost 30 years, the classification of these organisms remains mysterious. 

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