Biomarker evidence that Dickinsonia were first animals

By Gege Li2018-09-20T19:03:00

A photograph of an organically preserved Dickinsonia fossil from the White Sea area of Russia

Source: © Ilya Bobrovskiy/ Australian National University

Analysis places unusual ovular organism on multicellular branch of phylogenetic tree

Fossils of Dickinsonia from over 500 million years ago indicate that they were the first animals to have existed on Earth, thanks to new evidence from preserved steroid lipids.