Lírios que andam!!!

Apesar de estarmos constantemente a colocar notícias aqui no blog sobre vida muito estranha na Terra, o certo é que continuo a surpreender-me com o que vamos descobrindo!
Leiam sobre vida estranha na Terra, clicando aqui.

Duas das notícias que me surpreenderam mais, foi a lesma marinha (animal faz fotossíntese) e a Turritopsis (medusa imortal).
Curiosamente, ambos vivem na água, e as surpresas aquáticas são em muito maior número, provando assim a espantosa diversidade de estratégias na natureza, e porventura a nossa deficiente classificação das espécies.

Agora, apareceu mais uma surpresa vinda dos mares: um lírio-do-mar que anda!
As divisões populares entre animais e plantas continuam a decair…

Leiam na Astrobiology magazine:
“(…) Now, a study by University of Michigan paleontologist Tomasz Baumiller and colleagues finds that sea urchins have been preying on marine animals known as crinoids for more than 200 million years and suggests that such interactions drove one type of crinoid—the sea lily—to develop the ability to escape by creeping along the ocean floor.
(…)
With their long stalks and feathery arms, sea lilies look a lot like their garden-variety namesakes. Perhaps because of that resemblance, scientists long had thought that sea lilies stayed rooted instead of moving around like their stalkless relatives, the feather stars. But in the 1980s, Baumiller and collaborator Charles Messing of Nova Southeastern University’s Oceanographic Center in Dania Beach, Fla., observed sea lilies shedding the ends of their stalks to release themselves from their anchor points and using their feathery arms to crawl away, dragging their stalks behind them.
Then, while going through hundreds of hours of video shot during submersible dives, the two researchers came across footage that offered an explanation for why sea lilies might get up and go. The videos showed sea urchins lurking in gardens of sea lilies, some of which appeared to be creeping away from the predators. In some photos, the sea floor around the urchins was littered with sea lily arms, like table scraps left from a feast.
Further studies by Baumiller, Messing and Rich Mooi of the California Academy of Sciences suggested that sea urchins don’t simply scavenge bits of dead sea lilies that they find on the ocean floor; they bite pieces right off their prey, giving sea lilies plenty of reason to shed their stalk ends like lizards’ tails and scoot away.
(…)
The findings suggest that the development of motility in crinoids, as well as other escape strategies such as active swimming and floating, were stimulated by their interactions with predators. (…)”