Oldest Organism With Skeleton Discovered in Australia-550 to 560 Million Years Old

Oldest Organism With Skeleton Discovered in Australia-550 to 560 Million Years Old

www.sciencedaily.com

ScienceDaily (Mar. 8, 2012) — A team of paleontologists has discovered the oldest animal with a skeleton. Called Coronacollina acula, the organism is between 560 million and 550 million years old, which places it in the Ediacaran period, before the explosion of life and diversification of organisms took place on Earth in the Cambrian.

"Up until the Cambrian, it was understood that animals were soft bodied and had no hard parts," said Mary Droser, a professor of geology at ...

(visit the link for the full news article)

Mods please move if it doesn't belong in BAN. I read the criteria and thought it fit.

I don't think anyone has posted this. I did a pretty thorough search so we'll see.

This is pretty neat. It trumps a discovery from a couple years ago, and at that rate may soon be outdated by another discovery. The link has pictures, though they are not particularly exciting. The finding brings a host of new information regarding the evolution of life, animal extinction, adaptation, and will aid in the recognition of life throughout the universe.

www.sciencedaily.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

reply to post by FelixFelicis


great find Felix
The place were it was found is the Ediacara Hills in the Northern Flinders Ranges,
South Australia. This region is an ancient seabed and is known for its very old fossils.
I've been out camping in the Flinders for 25years on and off, it is a beautiful place to be
There are some excellent cave art sites from the Adnyamathanha (rock people) nation
in the region as well

reply to post by FelixFelicis


That's certainly going to be re-writing some Biology books in the future.

Or at the very least adding some notes.

Originally posted by LeLeu
reply to post by FelixFelicis

 

great find Felix

The place were it was found is the Ediacara Hills in the Northern Flinders Ranges,
South Australia. This region is an ancient seabed and is known for its very old fossils.
I've been out camping in the Flinders for 25years on and off, it is a beautiful place to be

There are some excellent cave art sites from the Adnyamathanha (rock people) nation
in the region as well

Thanks! This was my first thread. Funny you should mention the art because I'm about to put together a group presentation on oceanic art for a class, and I called dibbs on Prehistoric. It should be very interesting. Might even post it here.

reply to post by Miraj


I bet! I can picture them coming to work with that on their desk and saying "But I just wrote that" haha

reply to post by FelixFelicis


lol yeah.

We just covered the whole evolution of animals not too long ago in my Biology class. Kind of funny to find contradictory information. It'll be impressive to see what more comes out in the future, as I think this is a fairly major development when comparing the evolution of certain features in animals since the development a skeleton this early is fairly significant.

reply to post by Miraj


I definitely agree. Its amazing to think, in the entire existence of humanity, how much our understanding of, not just biology, but everything has changed in the last 100 years.

reply to post by FelixFelicis


Yeah. I sometimes wonder what my dad would have been taught in his biology class in the 70s or 80s.

So much has changed. One time a teacher in Anatomy and Physiology looked at a chapter (Lymph system I think) and had said "Wow this was about 3 pages thick in my day."

So much more that we know now about the timeline on which life developed thanks to fossils and genetic data. And apparently we're going to discover so much more.

reply to post by Miraj


It's ironic how expensive a college education is and how irrelevant they can become in ones field, that is even if they get a job in their field.

reply to post by FelixFelicis


yeah. I like to think of all the useless stuff that is really needed to be known. I find it likely that as knowledge increased, universities and organizations probably saw the opportunity to make classes harder and longer, without actually providing more useful education. I know so many useless things that will never be applied lol.