Traces of the oldest creature of the earth - 558 million years ago have been reported and the mysteries of decades that paleontology has pursued are elucidated

As fossils having a pattern like a leaf and having a size of about 1.4 m in length adhered to traces of "lipid" which is one of the characteristics of animals, this fossil was estimated to be 588 million years ago It was discovered that it belonged to the organism " Dickinsonia " who inhabited the. This fossil is the fossil of the oldest creature currently found on the earth.

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Dickinsonia was a kind of living organisms inhabited in the sea about 600 million years ago from the Precambrian era in the Ediacaran era , and its existence was confirmed for the first time in the 1940 's. The body tissue is in a very flat state, the length is about 1 meter to 1.4 meters, but the thickness is only about 3 mm. For fossils you can see patterns like leaf veins seen in the skeleton, leaves and leaves.

By Verisimilus

As to what the identity of Dickinsonia is, the discussion has been divided since the discovery of the 1940 's. Scientists who advocate the theory that it is actually a type of bryophyte in fact because they can not clearly distinguish limbs, mouth, organs and the like necessary for animals while showing a state like an animal, a huge single cell Ameba, and traces of animals that failed to evolve, and so on.

However, research results that are likely to put an end to the discussion were brought about by research teams such as the Australian National University Earth Science Institute (ANU). The situation is explained in the following movie.

Scientists reveal secrets of oldest known animal fossil - YouTube


Dickinsonia is a living creature living in the PreCambrian era where nearly all of the earth is covered with the ocean, which is an organism in the period before the Cambrian era in which the species of living things explodely increases afterwards.

It is thought that the situation when Dickinsonia was alive was this kind of thing.

"Whether Dickinsonia was a huge unicellular organism or the oldest ancestor of our animal was a matter of debate," said Associate Professor Jochen Blocks of ANU.

Mr. Blocks' team of scientists looked for the fossil of Dickinsonia in the stratum along the North Sea in the northwestern part of Russia and clarified its detailed form.

According to Ilya Bobrovski of PhD.Candidate (applicant for doctoral dissertation) who participated in the survey, along the coast of the North Sea it was a wild place dominated by bears and mosquitoes.

Therefore, the survey team entered the field on a helicopter, hanging rope from the top of the cliff, hanging from the fossil's sleeping stratum to work for digging fossils.

The height of the cliff is 60 to 100 meters. In this state, the survey team had cut off the sandstone lumps, dropped it downwards, and then continued the work of washing with water indefinitely.

Researchers returned the fossils of Dickinsonia found in this way to the laboratory and investigated the traces of organic matter left in the fossil in detail.

As a result, a molecule of cholesterol, a type of lipid, was discovered from fossils. This confirmed that Dickinsonia is not a plant companion but a distant ancestor of our animal.

Mr. Blocks said, "This fossil lipid is the oldest animal fossil as long as Dickinsonia is known.This will elucidate the mystery of decades that paleontology has pursued We are talking about the results of the discovery. As for the creatures of the Ediacaran era, there are many things that we do not know yet and further investigation is required in the future.