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Lifting the veil on the oldest-known animals

Gaps in the fossil record mean that the origins of ancient animals such as jellyfish and corals have remained a mystery. Now, a long-awaited fossil discovery reveals key features of this group during the early stages of its evolution.
  1. Marc Laflamme

    1. Marc Laflamme is in the Department of Chemical and Physical Sciences, University of Toronto Mississauga, Mississauga, Ontario L5L 1C6, Canada.

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Jellyfish and corals belong to the group of animals known as cnidarians. The oldest-known ancestors of this grouping are thought to have arisen by the Ediacaran period (between 635 million and 539 million years ago); however, fossil examples of cnidarians have been lacking. Writing in Nature Ecology & Evolution, Dunn et al.1 report the discovery of a fossil cnidarian from Charnwood Forest in the United Kingdom. If this attribution is correct, the species — which the authors named Auroralumina attenboroughii, in honour of the natural historian David Attenborough — has a body plan that is very different from that of other Ediacaran organisms. Its architecture is instead much more reminiscent of younger forms derived from a subsequent event called the Cambrian explosion, which underpinned the evolution and diversification of most modern groups of animals.

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Nature 609, 904-905 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-02893-4

References

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Competing Interests

The author declares no competing interests.

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