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Bilaterian animals such as arthropods and annelids have paired appendages and are among the most diverse animals today and in the geological past. They are often assumed to have appeared and radiated suddenly during the "Cambrian Explosion" about 541-510 million years ago, although it has long been suspected that their evolutionary ancestry was rooted in the Ediacaran Period. Until the current discovery, however, no fossil record of animal appendages had been found in the Ediacaran Period.Researchers from the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Virginia Tech in the United States studied trackways and...

A previously unclassified creature that lived over 500 million years ago, considered the "Holy Grail of paleontology," has finally been identified, thanks to fossil fat. The creature, known as Dickinsonia, was previously found in northwest Russia near the White Sea. It had not been classified before, until other recently found Dickinsonia fossils showed the presence of organic tissue, allowing researchers to identify molecules of cholesterol, described as "a hallmark" of animals. Brocks added: “Scientists have been fighting for more than 75 years over what Dickinsonia and other bizarre fossils of the Edicaran Biota were: giant single-celled amoeba, lichen, failed experiments...

A potential 370-mile-wide crater in Australia, known as MAPCIS, may reshape our understanding of Earth’s geological history. Researchers found geological evidence, including shocked minerals and melt rock, suggesting a massive impact at the end of the Ediacaran period. (Artist’s concept.) Credit: SciTechDaily.com =========================================================================== Research team is delving into history, exploring events that occurred hundreds of millions of years ago. A potential crater over 370 miles (600 kilometers) wide in central Australia may transform our knowledge of Earth’s geological past. Researcher Daniel Connelly and Virginia Commonwealth University’s Arif Sikder, Ph.D., believe they have found evidence to support the existence of MAPCIS...