The oldest animals have skeletons have been found. Animals were identified as Coronacollina acula. The researchers say the creature shaped like a thimble that live on the sea floor was more than half a billion years ago.
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| The ancient animal Coronacollina acula, with the round depression in the middle representing its body, while the four lines radiating from it were its needlelike "spicules." (Scale bar is in centimeters.) (Picture from: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/) |
"Coronacollina is an example of one of the earliest animals on Earth," says Erica Clites, a paleontologist at the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area in Arizona.
Hundreds of animal fossils were found in a layer of ancient sandstone in southern Australia. The area is estimated to have a shallow seabed.
Clites said the fossil Coronacollina glance looks like the lines and holes in the rock. But, if observed in more detail, would seem to describe the texture elements multicellular organisms.
C. acula 1.5 centimeters tall and large 2.2 centimeters. Four needles sticking out of the spicules appear on his body, each needle has a length of 37 centimeters.
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| This shows the best Coronacollina specimens showing the main body with articulated spicules. Specimens originate from different field localities. Arrows indicate main body of Coronacollina. White/black bars indicate 1 cm. A, C, D and E are photographs of fossil impressions in the rock. B and F are latex casts showing how the fossils would have looked in life, after compression. (Picture from: http://www.physorg.com/) |
The researchers suspect the needle was used as a framework to support the body, much like the frame of the tent. C. acula not the type of animal that can move. Do you eat like a sea sponge, which filter food from water.
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| A reconstruction of what Coronacollina acula may have looked like. (Picture from: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/) |
C. acula estimated 550-560 million years old, namely the Ediacaran period. Clites said the animals that live in the Ediacaran period is generally strange and very difficult to be connected with the modern animal groups.
"Until the Cambrian period, all kinds of soft-bodied animals and have no hard parts. But Coronacollina have hard body parts," Clites said. "Coronacollina be the first unequivocal evidence of macroscopic organisms in the Ediacaran period that has a skeleton structure."
Clites added that this finding may explain the early evolution of life on earth as well as help scientists investigate the possibility of life elsewhere in the universe. *** [LIVESCIENCE | MAHARDIKA SATRIA HADI | KORAN TEMPO 3820]
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