Plant Fossils Turn Out To Be Weird Ancient Animals
- 6 years ago
Recent research suggests that roughly 570-million-year-old fossils long thought to be plants are actually animals.
Recent research suggests that roughly 570-million-year-old fossils long thought as plants are actually animals that predate the Cambrian explosion, notes Live Science. If that is the case, it means that animal kingdom appeared earlier than generally believed. An international team of scientists was first alerted to that possibility by the discovery of roughly 200 leaf-like imprints dating back about 518 million years and to the Cambrian period. Live Science reports that those were compared to the older, fairly mysterious Ediacaran-era leaf fossils, revealing that "both sets of fossils belonged to the same group on the tree of life called Petalonamae— meaning the Ediacaran organisms also had to be animals." That discovery also cleared up another matter. Jennifer Hoyal Cuthill, one of the researchers, told Newsweek that finding suggests the animal group in question "survived much longer than many had thought and were not wiped out when the Cambrian explosion began."
Recent research suggests that roughly 570-million-year-old fossils long thought as plants are actually animals that predate the Cambrian explosion, notes Live Science. If that is the case, it means that animal kingdom appeared earlier than generally believed. An international team of scientists was first alerted to that possibility by the discovery of roughly 200 leaf-like imprints dating back about 518 million years and to the Cambrian period. Live Science reports that those were compared to the older, fairly mysterious Ediacaran-era leaf fossils, revealing that "both sets of fossils belonged to the same group on the tree of life called Petalonamae— meaning the Ediacaran organisms also had to be animals." That discovery also cleared up another matter. Jennifer Hoyal Cuthill, one of the researchers, told Newsweek that finding suggests the animal group in question "survived much longer than many had thought and were not wiped out when the Cambrian explosion began."