Crab Teratoma

Databank generation alert: known scientific theory inadequate to explain specimen.

This coral dome (*Coral geodesica*) contains a mass of hybrid tissue: part coral, part crab limb (tentative clade name: *Ostrakonselos*). Spectrogenetic analysis confirms that the mass is not a chimera of two distinct tissues, but a single cell line expressing genes from both the coral dome and the crab.

Animals of different species cannot reproduce. It is impossible for a coral polyp and a crab to combine their genetic information. When genes do transfer between different species, it is often the result of retroviral infection. (The mammalian placenta relies on a genes inserted by a retrovirus hundreds of millions of years ago.)

Assessment: either the result of artificial intervention, or a striking example of retroviral activity transferring genes between species.