Slashdot Mirror


Oldest Animal: Fossilized While Hatching

An anonymous reader writes "Thousands of 600 million years old embryo microfossils have been found in China that may be among the first animals. It is a case of preserving the seemingly unpreserveable. The Precambrian coral-like animals seem to have spiral patterns that show some were preserved at the moment of hatching, according to the researchers: 'These organisms lived 600 million years ago -- before big animals. This would be the very first moment of animal evolution preserved in the fossil record.'"

3 of 27 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Wish I had some concept of the size by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    If anything, the smaller a fossil is, the more likely it is to survive. And, with micromanipulators, we can slice anything open these days, down to individual cells.

  2. Re:Wow. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Evolutionism? Do you also use the terms, "gravitism," or, "atomism"? It seems to me that your polemic is nothing more than an attempt to drag science down to the creationists' level. Rest assured that science is not some sort of alternate religion--it does not involve faith or magic. It does involve evidence and explanations for that evidence.

    What's even worse is that you seem to believe that an intelligent sense of proportion is somehow wrong. The time during which humans have lived is small compared to the time during which the Earth has existed and the Earth is not the center of the universe. Sorry if this revelation damages your ego, but that's hardly a fault against the signifigance of this find.

  3. Re:Wish I had some concept of the size by Quelain · · Score: 2, Informative

    TFA says 70 - 500 microns (1mm = 1000 microns).

    They were 'sliced' with digital x-ray tomography:

    http://www.microphotonics.com/skymto.html
    http: //hhmi.genetics.utah.edu/microct/

    --
    Cthulhu loves you.