A 435-million-year-old fossil discovered in Connemara by an Irish geologist has been confirmed as a new species and the oldest of its type in Ireland. The thumbnail-sized ophiuroid, or brittlestar, has also been named after the man who found it, Dr Eamon Doyle, in a rare honour for an Irish scientist. The newly analysed brittlestar, a type of marine animal closely related to the starfish, is a species with super survival powers, Dr Doyle noted. This brittlestar is one of a species that evolved 500 million years ago and dates from the Silurian period, when the first true fish and land plants appeared. Dr Doyle, who is now a geologist with the Burren and Cliffs of Moher Unesco global geopark and Clare County Council, came across the fossil in Joyce country in Co Galway, in the late 1980s.

Source: The Irish Times January 19, 2018 14:37 UTC