Australian National University scientists have found fossils of some of the earliest known animals dating back 575 million years ago . The animals ate bacteria and algae that were collected from the ocean floor .
According to Australian National University (ANU), scientists have found fossils of some of the earliest known animals dating back 575 million years ago, shedding light on how our earliest animal ancestors lived.Researchers from ANU analyzed fossils retrieved from Russia and identified new information about our first animal relatives' physiology.Ediacara biota is the worlds oldest large organism that dates back 575 million years.The animals ate bacteria and algae that were collected from the ocean floor, according to ANU researchers.The findings, published in Current Biology, reveal more about these strange animals, including how they were able to consume and digest food, according to a journal published in the United States.
Researchers were able to confirm that the slug-like organism, Kimberella, had a mouth and a stomach and digested food the same as modern animals by studying the cellular remains of the animals' diets.It was likely one of the most advanced creatures of the Ediacarans, according to the ANU team, and another animal, which grew up to 1.4 meters in length and had a rib-like shape imprinted on its body was less robust and had no eyes, mouth, or gut.Instead, the strange creature, Dickinsonia, absorbed food through its body as it travelled the ocean floor, according to lead author Dr Ilya Bobrovskiy of GFZ-Potsdam, Germany.Both Kimberella and Dickinsonia are members of the Ediacara biota family that existed on Earth about 20 million years before the Cambrian Explosion, a major event that radically changed the course of human and other modern animals.These creatures are our deepest visible roots, according to Dr Bobrovskiy, who completed the research as part of his PhD at ANU, according to Professor Jochen Brocks of the ANU Research School of Earth Sciences. Professor Brocks said that nearly all fossils that existed before the Ediacara biota were single-celled and microscopic in size.Animals and cholesterol are the backbone of life, and the ANU team was able to establish that Ediacara biota is one of our oldest known ancestors back in 2018.The molecules contained tell-tale signals that helped the researchers figure out what the animals ate in the lead-up to their death.Professor Brocks said the difficult part was distinguishing between the signatures of the fat molecules in the creatures' bodies, the algal and bacterial remains in their stomachs, and the decaying algal molecules from the ocean floor that were all embedded in the fossils. Professor Brocks said that it was only after studying the body's sterol molecules that we could figure out what it was eating and how it digested food.Kimberella was able to figure out what exactly it was eating and digesting food precisely because she had an advanced fine-tuned gut that filter out all the rest.This was a Eureka moment for us; we now have access to the gut contents of animals even if the stomach has long ago.We then used the same technique on odder fossils such as Dickinsonia to figure out how it was surviving and discovered that Dickinsonia did not have a gut.In 2018 Featured Video Of The Day Exclusive Ashok Gehlot Interview Creates Waves