There have been several discoveries that were found by accident, and so is a recent discovery made by paleobiologists at the Swedish Museum of Natural History in Stockholm along with a team of researchers. The team discovered a 50-million-year-old worm in Antarctica.

Paleobiologists at the Swedish Museum of Natural History in Stockholm who were on an expedition with other researchers at Seymour Island in Antarctica discovered a 50-million-year-old worm.

It has been said that the researchers and the paleobiologists were on an expedition at Seymour Island in Antarctica. Thomas Mörs of the museum was searching for mammal remains when he stumbled upon the fossil of a cocoon.

Thomas thought that the cocoon might contain plant remain, and passed it on to a fellow researchers Benjamin Bomfleur. Benjamin noticed that the strands of the cocoon appeared to be like that of fossilized animal spermatozoa.

Dr. Bomfleur told The Washington Post that it is the oldest fossilized animal spermatozoa ever discovered. He said they never thought they would ever be able to make such a discovery.

Researchers after collecting the cocoon compared it with the sperm cell characteristics under an electron microscope. The results showed that the sperm belonged to a species of annelid worms.

Later, the samples were sent to zoologist Marco Ferraguti, who compared it with the images of living worms and concluded that they belonged to a type of crayfish worm.

Study-coauthor Steve McLoughlin, in an interview with National Geographic, said, “Surprisingly, modern crayfish worms are only known from the Northern Hemisphere. If our identification is correct then it implies that this group of animals had a much greater geographic range [50 million years ago] than they do today”.

Bomfleur said the sperm when found was not completely intact, meaning that they will not be able to learn much about it. But the cocoon, however, contained remnants of clam shells and other small animals.