Free Republic

Fossils found in rugged mountainous terrain in Canada’s Northwest Territories may give a glimpse at the humble dawn of animal life on Earth – sea sponges that inhabited primordial reefs built by bacteria roughly 890 million years ago. A Canadian researcher said on Wednesday the fossils, dating to a time called the Neoproterozoic Period, appear to show distinctive microstructures from the body of a sea sponge built similarly to a species living today called the Mediterranean bath sponge, or Spongia officinalis. If this interpretation is correct, these would be the oldest fossils of animal life by roughly 300 million years.

Fossils of what could be the oldest animal bodies have been discovered in Australia, pushing back the clock on when animal life first appeared on Earth to at least 70 million years earlier than previously thought. The results suggest that primitive sponge-like creatures lived in ocean reefs about 650 million years ago. Digital images of the fossils suggest the animals were about a centimeter in size (the width of your small fingertip) and had irregularly shaped bodies with a network of internal canals. The shelly fossils, found beneath a 635 million-year-old glacial deposit in South Australia, represent the earliest evidence...