Scientists have discovered the “earliest and most credible” primitive animal fossil in 600-million-year-old rocks in southwest China, media reports say.
The research led by Chinese scientists described a well-preserved, rice grain-sized primitive sponge fossil in the Guizhou Province, a Xinhua report said.
“It’s the world’s earliest and most credible fossil record of primitive animal bodies,” said the lead author of the research, Maoyan Zhu, of the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology.
“The discovery will help remove doubts whether animals have emerged on earth 600 million years ago,” Mr. Maoyan said.
The fossilised animal, slightly more than 1.2-mm wide and 1.1-mm tall, displays many characteristics of modern adult sponges, an analysis based on advanced imaging techniques found.
The specimen is composed of hundreds of thousands of cells, and has a structure consisting of three adjacent hollow tubes sharing a common base, the researchers said.
Flat tile-like features on the fossil’s external surface, punctuated with small pores, resemble pinacocytes on modern sponges, whereas the fossil’s inner surface is covered with a regular pattern of uniform pits, with many pits surrounded by collars, similar to sponge choanocytes.
In addition, it has a simple canal system for water inflow and outflow.
“These features showed it is a primitive animal similar to modern sponges and could have lived a filter-feeding life through its simple water canal system on the shallow sea floor,” Mr. Maoyan said.
Sponges are the most primitive living animals. They have only differentiated cells, but no real organs or tissues. The previous oldest known primitive sponge fossil was dated to 530 million years ago, in the early Cambrian period. — IANS