For 70 years, scientists have been looking at this ancient fossil the wrong way
In short: Dickinsonia, a mysterious, quilted organism from over 550 million years ago, has long baffled researchers. Once mistaken for a jellyfish or fungus, this Ediacaran creature is now confirmed as an early animal. A new developmental study reveals that previous generations of scientists were actually observing its growth from the wrong end.
Living between roughly 580 and 540 million years ago, Dickinsonia belongs to the Ediacaran biota, a collection of soft-bodied organisms that thrived in global oceans. Since its discovery in 1947, its classification has been a subject of intense debate. Because it lacks clear modern analogues, researchers have variously proposed that it was a worm, a placozoan, a lichen, or even a giant protist. This uncertainty stemmed from the difficulty of comparing its limited morphological features to those of living organisms.
To resolve this, researchers from institutions including the universities of Cambridge and Oxford analyzed populations of Dickinsonia to model its growth. By counting and measuring the segments along its body, the team determined that the organism grew by both adding and inflating these units. Crucially, they discovered a shift in the rate of this process during its life cycle. By reinterpreting their data, the authors concluded that the end previously assumed to be the youngest was actually the oldest, correcting a seven-decade-old error in how the fossil is understood.
This finding is significant because it provides positive evidence that Dickinsonia was an early animal, likely belonging to the Placozoa or Eumetazoa. It confirms that complex animal life existed millions of years before the Cambrian Explosion, a period traditionally associated with the rapid diversification of animal body plans. By identifying Dickinsonia as an animal, researchers can now better explore the origins of fundamental biological traits like bilateral symmetry and segmentation, shedding light on how early life evolved from basic structures into the complex forms we recognize today.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: ‘Mysterious’ ancient creature was definitely an animal, research confirms
- Also: Dickinsonia
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