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BOB HIRSHON (host):
Starless starfish…I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.
In the 1980s, researchers discovered a marine organism living on timbers that had fallen to the sea floor, nearly a mile below the surface. They thought the animal, called xyloplax, or sea daisy, represented a whole new class of echinoderms. But DNA analysis by computational biologist Dan Janies of Ohio State University and his colleagues instead revealed that xyloplax are actually a type of armless starfish.
DAN JANIES (The Ohio State University):
It’s in fact just a strange starfish.
HIRSHON:
He says the lack of arms is deceptive, but an adult xyloplax actually resembles a juvenile starfish.
JANIES:
What evolution has done here is truncated the life cycle. So we have a juvenile size and shape animal that has adult reproductive organs.
HIRSHON:
He says the discovery highlights the importance of using DNA to correctly classify enigmatic organisms. I’m Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.
Podcast for 27 May 2011