Reverse engineering mysterious 500-million-year-old fossils that confound our tree of life
June 21, 2017 by Simon Darroch And Imran Rahman, The Conversation
Paleontologists like us are used to working with fossils that would seem bizarre to many biologists accustomed to living creatures. And as we go farther back in Earth's history, the fossils start to look even weirder. They lack tails, legs, skeletons, eyes…any characteristics that would help us understand where these organisms fit in the tree of life. Under these circumstances, the science of paleontology becomes significantly harder.
Nowhere is this issue more apparent than in the Ediacaran period, which lasted from 635 million to 541 million years ago. A peculiar and entirely soft-bodied suite of fossils from this era are collectively referred to as the Ediacara biota. Despite nearly 70 years of careful study, paleontologists have yet to identify key features among them that would allow us to understand how these organisms are related to modern animals. The forms evident among Ediacaran organisms are, for the most part, truly unique – and we are no closer to understanding their place in evolutionary history.
Read more at:
https://phys.org/news/2017-06-reverse-mysterious-million-year-old-fossils-confound.html#jCp
