Wednesday 9 April 2014

Scientists Discover First New Horseshoe Worm In Over 60 years

redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports – Your Universe Online

A team of Japanese researchers has identified a new species of horseshoe worm, making it the 11th member of the phylum Phoronida and the first to be discovered in more than six decades.

Horseshoe worms are worm-like invertebrates that live in the water and typically make their homes in rocks, bivalve shells and other hard and soft substrates. The “horseshoe” portion of their name refers to the appearance of their lophophores, which are U-shaped crowns of tentacles that serve as the organism’s feeding organ.

The new species was collected from Tomioka Bay in Amakusa, Japan and has been identified as Phoronis emigi. It’s discovery, which is the first new horseshoe worm to be identified since Phoronis pallid in 1952, is described in the latest edition of the journal ZooKeys.

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