Found, Starfish of ​​Aging

Researchers find animal-shaped disc in the interior of the Pacific Ocean. Interestingly, animals that presented in the journal Systematic Biology, his body was never arrived at a phase of life as an adult creature.

Starfish species into the genus of this Xyloplax living on the seabed in, areas where small size would be an advantage. He has only a diameter of 2 to 5 millimeters. These animals also did not have arms like that typically seen in adult starfish.

"By staying small, these creatures can get into nooks and crannies such as the crack of wood on which they can take a variety of things around him," said Daniel janies, Computational biologist from Ohio State University, as quoted by LiveScience, May 5, 2011.

Researchers know that Xyloplax an echinoderm, a group of organisms that includes starfish, sea lily, sea cucumbers, brittle stars and sea urchins.

As with other echinoderm, Xyloplax have a vacuum around her body which is useful for breathing apparatus, the driving tool, as well as a tool to hold onto. He also remained in special cages until they reach advanced stages of childhood to later be released as free-living individuals.

However, Xyloplax which was first discovered in 2010 in the waters of the Pacific Ocean at a depth of about 2200 meters has a life cycle such as disconnected. As a result, adult animals have limbs that have not changed since he was in a stage of childhood.

For example, the hand of starfish usually grow menyumbu like spokes of a wheel, as they grow from the stage of childhood to adulthood. However Xyloplax circumference only body that grows. Unlike sea stars that should raise his hand, he is not the case.

"Xyloplax a small starfish that have body structures and habitats that strange," said Janies. "I was so strangely, we do not recognize it as a star of the sea until we know the genome and how it grows," he said