Microbial mats that existed on sea floors prior to the Cambrian explosion provided the foundation for early animal life to arise, new research looking at trace fossils of that early life has found.
Earth Sciences
Jan 8, 2018
0
743
Paleontologists at the University of Toronto (U of T) and the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) in Toronto have entirely revisited a tiny yet exceptionally fierce ancient sea creature called Habelia optata that has confounded scientists ...
Archaeology
Dec 21, 2017
0
1397
It lived well over 550 million years ago, is known only through fossils and has variously been described as looking a bit like a jellyfish, a worm, a fungus and lichen. But was the 'mysterious' Dickinsonia an animal, or was ...
Archaeology
Sep 14, 2017
0
176
Long before dinosaurs roamed the Earth, a bizarre creature with a Venus flytrap-like head swam the seas.
Archaeology
Aug 3, 2017
0
237
Paleontologists like us are used to working with fossils that would seem bizarre to many biologists accustomed to living creatures. And as we go farther back in Earth's history, the fossils start to look even weirder. They ...
Paleontology & Fossils
Jun 21, 2017
0
15
One branch on the tree of life is a bit more crowded today. A team of scientists led by 20-year-old University of Toronto (U of T) undergraduate student Joseph Moysiuk has finally determined what a bizarre group of extinct ...
Archaeology
Jan 11, 2017
0
91
For the development of animals, nothing—with the exception of DNA—may be more important than oxygen in the atmosphere.
Earth Sciences
Jan 2, 2017
13
718
(Phys.org)—A team of researchers from China and the U.S. has found evidence of ancient weathering in a glacial deposit in China's Hunan province. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, ...
The origin and early evolution of animals have been a fascinating topic since Charles Darwin. Definite early animal fossils largely appear from early Cambrian, so the fossil records are often interpreted as documenting a ...
Earth Sciences
Aug 1, 2016
0
11
Newly discovered fossil evidence from Namibia strengthens the proposition that the world's first mass extinction was caused by "ecosystem engineers" - newly evolved biological organisms that altered the environment so radically ...
Archaeology
Jul 29, 2016
3
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