New Lifeform Discovered!

by David Sugarman

Just when you thought we'd discovered all the main types of life on Earth, along comes something totally unexpected, and never-before-seen: a brand new major category of creature, a new phylum (a phylum is a big grouping, like animals with backbones or critters like starfish). And where did zoologists find it?

On the mouthparts of Norwegian lobsters!

These little guys, named Symbion pandora, are weird. They look like tiny bags of jelly. As they hang about grabbing bits of the lobster's meal, they develop several immature forms — larvae inside themselves. Each of these larvae also produces a larva inside itself. It's a bit like those nesting Russian dolls.

When the first larva emerges, it soon dies, and the innermost one stays attached to the lobster. And to top it off, somehow these critters seems to sense when their lobster is ready to moult and grow a new shell. Just before this starts, male and female forms of S. Pandora are produced, and an entirely different kind of larva results.

So what? Life's out there — strange, wonderful and showing up in the most unexpected ways. Always ready to surprise us.