![]() ![]() ![]() “Looking at them is like snorkeling around on the ancient sea floor, instead of looking at a single animal in a fish tank.”įossil of small, round Rugoconites, one of Earth's first animals. “This way, we’re able to piece together whole ecosystems,” Droser said. Her group discovered it at an extraordinarily well-preserved fossil site in the Australian Outback, at what is now called Nilpena Ediacara National Park.Ī series of storms buried the Ediacaran sea floor at Nilpena in layers of sediment, helping preserve sandstone impressions of entire animal communities that lived together there. In 2018, Droser’s laboratory named the Obamus in honor of Barack Obama’s passion for science. But Obamus only occurs where there is a thick mat, and it’s a pretty sophisticated way of making a living for something so very old,” said Mary Droser, UCR distinguished professor of paleontology and study co-author. “We think about the very oldest animals and maybe you wouldn’t expect them to be so picky. It did not move of its own accord, and likely spent its entire life embedded in its preferred spot on the sea floor. The animal averaged about a half-inch in diameter and was “shaped like a French cruller donut with ribbons on top,” Boan said. president, opted to live on specific parts of the sea floor in the company of other Obamus.Īrtist rendering of Obamus coronatus. A new Paleobiology paper details how Obamus coronatus, named for the former U.S. Given the alien nature of Ediacaran Earth, the researchers were surprised to find an animal that lived much the way barnacles do today. In addition, predatory creatures were uncommon. It was dominated by a mat on the sea floor composed of bacteria and layers of other organic materials. The ancient sea was also a largely foreign place compared to today’s marine environments. “With these animals, because they have no modern descendants, we’re still working out basic questions about how they lived, such as how they reproduced and what they ate.”įor this particular research project, the researchers focused on understanding where in the sea the animals spent their lives. Boan, UC Riverside paleontology graduate student and lead author of the new study. “It’s not like studying dinosaurs, which are related to birds that we can observe today,” said Phillip C. Researchers have long considered them enigmatic. These creatures from the Ediacaran Period, roughly 550 million years ago, are strangely shaped soft-bodied animals that lived in the sea. Fossil impression of Tribrachidium, an Ediacaran-Period animal found in the Australian Outback. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |