World's oldest animal footprints: revealing strange burrowing creature that lived 550M years ago

Thesun.co.uk ^ | June 6, 2018 | Sean Keach, Digital Technology and Science Editor

[ETL]

World's Oldest Animal Footprints Discovered: Revealing Strange Burrowing Creature that Lived 550 Million Years Ago

A mysterious creature with paired legs is responsible for treading through China, leaving the earliest footprints known to man

Scientists have uncovered the earliest footprints left by animals on Earth, dating back more than half a billion years.

The astonishing discovery reveals how creatures with paired legs were seemingly scuttling around over 100 million years earlier than we previously thought.

The fossilised footprints were discovered by a team of scientists studying trackways and burrows in China.

We don't know exactly what species the footprints belong to, but scientists described the creature as a bilaterian animal, like an arthropod.

This means it has paired appendages, and may have been a burrowing creature.

Experts previously believed that this type of creature appeared during the "Cambrian Explosion" around 541 to 510 million years ago.

[ETL]

The earliest known animal footprints have been discovered in China

[ETL]

A Timeline of Life on Earth

The history of the planet in years...

• 4.6 billion years ago – the origin of Earth
• 3.8 billion years ago – first life appears on Earth
• 2.1 billion years ago – lifeforms made up of multiple cells evolve
• 1.5 billion years ago – eukaryotes, which are cells that contain a nucleus inside of their membranes, emerge
• 550 million years ago – first arthropods evolve
• 530 million years ago – first fish appear
• 470 million years ago – first land plants appear
• 380 million years ago – forests emerge on Earth
• 370 million years ago – first amphibians emerge from the water onto land
• 320 million years ago – earliest reptiles evolve
• 230 million years ago – dinosaurs evolve
• 200 million years ago – mammals appear
• 150 million years ago – earliest birds evolve
• 130 million years ago – first flowering plants
• 100 million years ago – earliest bees
• 55 million years ago – hares and rabbits appear
• 30 million years ago – first cats evolve
• 20 million years ago – great apes evolve
• 7 million years ago –first human ancestors appear
• 2 million years ago – Homo erectus appears
• 300,000 years ago – Homo sapiens evolves
• 50,000 years ago – Eurasia and Oceania colonised
• 40,000 years ago – Neandethal extinction

[Fungi]

Really? Are you sure?

[ETL]

[Artemis Webb]

Re #4:

HA! :)

[LostInBayport]

Hey, at least you’re younger than plasmodial slime molds. That reminds me, has Hillary given any comments on the Singapore Summit?

[ETL]

[crusher2013]

550 Million years... That’s a long time for ET to colonize the Earth.

Hey, where is everyone...

(Fermi Paradox).

[PIF]

Some Neanderthal finds are dated to 29,000 BC.

Many anomalous artificial objects found in coal deposits dating from 500 million of years ago. One goes back 2.8 billion years: Spherical metallic objects with regular groves, balanced to within 1/100,000ths of an inch from absolute perfection

[dainbramaged]

Fungus among us.

[epluribus_2]

Looks like those tunnels in the Martian meteorite rocks member those?

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks ETL.

[ETL]

Thank YOU for pinging your mob! :)

[Doogle]

[ridesthemiles]

Probably an ancestor of the tunneling ground squirrels I deal with in the high desert here in N Nevada.

[Fungi]

You really believe this is true?

[Karoo]

how many human civilizations during this time?

[gundog]

I’ll thank you not to post smut on FR.

[gundog]

Look like the tracks that beetles leave in sand.

[ETL]

You never heard of foot fungus? It’s as real as the other forms of fungi.

Fungal Infections of the Skin
https://www.webmd.com/skin-problems-and-treatments/guide/fungal-infections-skin