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Paleontologists have rediscovered a symbiotic relationship between two deep-sea animals that were previously thought to have disappeared from fossil record hundreds of millions of years ago.The ancient pair identified in a new report — published in the journal Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology — are two types of non-skeletal coral and crinoid, or sea lilies, an animal whose cousins in the phylum Echinodermata include starfish and sea urchins.A joint team of researchers from Poland and Japan unearthed these specimens from the Pacific Ocean floor, off the coasts of Honshu and Shikoku. While similar corals and crinoids have existed throughout fossil record, their symbiotic link was presumed lost after the Paleozoic era.
