Animals May Have Evolved 200 Million Years Earlier than Thought
- On Friday, October 2, researchers published a study in Science Advances suggesting animals originated between 800 million and 700 million years ago, potentially pushing the timeline back by 200 million years.
- Scientists previously used the 590-million-year-old Weng'an Biota in China to set an upper limit for animal evolution, assuming such "exceptional" fossil deposits would have preserved animals if they existed then.
- Associate Professor Ross Anderson of the University of Oxford led a survey of the Kheseen Biota in Mongolia, finding no animal fossils despite exceptional preservation in deposits 40 million years younger than Weng'an.
- Using molecular clock analysis to compare genetic differences in living species, researchers shifted the estimated animal origins back to between 800 million and 700 million years ago.
- The timeline suggests animals may have evolved before or during the Cryogenian Period, known as 'Snowball Earth,' though study co-author Orin Lole Durbin, a doctoral student of paleobiology at Virginia Tech, said, "the precise birth date of the animal kingdom remains uncertain.
23 Articles
23 Articles
First Animals May Have Appeared 200 Million Years Earlier than Their Oldest Fossils Suggest
The oldest undisputed animal fossils, from the Ediacaran biota, are about 574 million years old, but chemical traces left by sponges, known as lipid biomarkers, hint that animals were around before 635 million years ago. The post First Animals May Have Appeared 200 Million Years Earlier than Their Oldest Fossils Suggest appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.
Oxford Mail
thisisoxfordshire.co.ukStudy suggests animals evolved 200 million years earlier than believed
The Oxford University study has made breakthroughs that could transform understanding of animal evolution.
Writing Science, 2 Oct (EFE).- Animals could have evolved up to 200 million years before their first appearance in the fossil record, in the Neoproterozoic – between 800 and 700 million years ago – or even before some of the most extreme glaciations in history took place.This is the hypothesis [...] The entry What if the animals emerged 200 million years earlier than the fossil record shows? was first published in HolaNews.
Animals may have evolved vastly earlier than fossil evidence suggests
The earliest animals may have evolved hundreds of millions of years before their first unmistakable fossils appear in the fossil record, according to a new study led by the University of Oxford. The findings, published in Science Advances, suggest animals may have originated deep in the Neoproterozoic Era, even before some of the most extreme ice ages in Earth's history.
An Oxford study questions whether we have interpreted well one of the most important deposits of our remote past.
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