'Like finding a sneeze': fossil identified as 100m-year-old hagfish

Discovery of slimy sea creature could help settle row over early evolution of vertebrates

The fossilised remains of a foot-long slimy sea creature dating from 100m years ago suggest that the last common ancestor of all vertebrates looked less like a squishy eel and more typically "fish-like", researchers claim.

They say the fossil, unearthed around eight years ago in Lebanon, is an early hagfish, a peculiar creature that has no jaws, eyes or true vertebrae but that boasts the ability, when threatened, to squirt out a mixture that turns into an expanse of slime.