A recent study revealed that the case of Bryozoans found in 2021, which are prehistoric invertebrate fossils, may not have an animal origin, but rather come from a different source: seaweed.
- The new research has re-evaluated the remains;
- This discovery is believed to represent the oldest animal remains ever recorded;
- The findings once again change what we know about the evolution of one of the most diverse, abundant and complex groups of invertebrates.
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The findings make these fossils more suitable for green algae, in a group known as Dasycladales. The study also highlighted that these algae may have played a more important role than previously thought in the rapid increase in biodiversity that occurred after the Cambrian Explosion, when life on Earth really began to accelerate.
“If fossils did indeed evolve after the Cambrian period, this indicates that evolution retained its creative touch after this critical period of innovation – the course of life may not have been well defined half a billion years ago,” said paleontologist Martin Smith, from Durham University. , United kingdom.
according to Science alertwhich released the study, so far, they are the only fossilized animals that did not exist during this period.
“We tend to think of the Cambrian Explosion as a unique period in evolutionary history in which all the blueprints for animal life were drawn. [mas] Most of the later development is due to smaller scale modifications to these original body plans.”
A new study refutes some details of previous research
In the first study, the analyzes indicated algae with tentacles, but now simple leaf-like edges have been found. “We realized we weren’t looking at fossil animals, but rather at seaweed.”
This also changes the age of the detected algae, which calculations previously indicated to be 500 million years ago – putting the organisms in the Cambrian period – is now 40 million years old, being part of the Ordovician period. Thus, the experts explained that the question of the “century” remains without a definite answer: Why is this class of creature the only one that did not appear in one of the most sudden explosions of life in the history of living things?
“An increasing number of Cambrian fossils show features that can be reconciled with a bryozoan affinity – but based on currently available material, no taxonomy can be interpreted with sufficient certainty to document a pre-Ordovician ancestry for wildlife,” the authors conclude.
nope the studies She was published In the scientific journal Nature.
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