Primordial 'Ice Cream Cone' Creature Finds a Family Tree

For 280 million years, strange shelled animals called hyoliths lived on ocean floors around the world. Newly discovered fossilized hyoliths that preserve 508-million-year-old soft tissues from these animals reveal that they were part of a group called the Lophophorata, researchers report Jan. 11 in the journal Nature. Animals in this group are distinguished by the tentacles around their mouths.