Researchers Discover the World’s Oldest Meal

Researchers Discover the World’s Oldest Meal
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A new discovery brings important clues for how the earliest animal ancestors of humans functioned. New fossils have been unearthed, and they belong to some of the earliest known animals that lived 575 million years ago. That’s about the same era when the Cambrian Explosion of Life occurred, which took place about 540 million years ago. 

The Australian National University (ANU) brings the news regarding the new discovery, while the new fossils were found in Russia. The Ediacara biota organism was found, and it’s considered the oldest one that’s also of large proportions. The animal was nurturing itself with algae and bacteria from the ocean floor. 

Ancient fossils found contained traces of phytosterol molecules that were well preserved and were also leftovers from the last meal of the animal.

Dr. Ilya Bobrovskiy, the lead author of the study, explained:

Our findings suggest that the animals of the Ediacara biota, which lived on Earth prior to the ‘Cambrian Explosion’ of modern animal life, were a mixed bag of outright weirdos, such as Dickinsonia, and more advanced animals like Kimberella that already had some physiological properties similar to humans and other present-day animals.

Dr. Bobrovskiy also speaks about the importance of the discovery of Ediacara biota and what the organism actually means, as NDTV quotes:

Ediacara biota really is the oldest fossils large enough to be visible with your naked eyes, and they are the origin of us and all animals that exist today. These creatures are our deepest visible roots.

The Ediacaran biota refers to a taxonomic period classification that consists of all the life forms that exist on our planet in the Ediacaran Period: c. 635–538.8 Mya. Complex life started to form on Earth about 2.33 billion years ago.

The new findings were published in Current Biology.


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Even since he was a child, Cristian was staring curiously at the stars, wondering about the Universe and our place in it. Today he's seeing his dream come true by writing about the latest news in astronomy. Cristian is also glad to be covering health and other science topics, having significant experience in writing about such fields.

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