Scientists Closer To Solving The Mystery Of When Animals Evolved
Conny Waters – AncientPages.com – A new study has brought us one step closer to solving a mystery that has puzzled naturalists since Charles Darwin: when did animals first appear in the history of Earth? Reconstruction of the Ediacaran seafloor from the Nama Group, Namibia, showing early animal diversity. Credit: Oxford University Museum of Natural […]
We Now Know What The Earliest Animals Looked Like – Scientists Say
Eddie Gonzales Jr. – AncientPages.com – For more than a century, biologists have wondered what the earliest animals were like when they first arose in the ancient oceans over half a billion years ago. Searching among today’s most primitive-looking animals for the earliest branch of the animal tree of life, scientists gradually narrowed the possibilities […]
Rare 518-Million-Year-Old Fossils Of An Unusual-Looking Animal Fill A Gap In The Evolution Of Major Animal Groups
Jan Bartek – AncientPages.com – Half a billion years ago, an unusual-looking animal crawled over the sea floor, using tentacles to pick up food particles along the way. Known as Rotadiscus grandis, this animal lived during the Cambrian period, when a burst of evolutionary activity is thought to have given rise to many of the major […]
First Solid Scientific Evidence That Vikings Brought Animals To Britain
Conny Waters – AncientPages.com – Archaeologists have found what they say is the first solid scientific evidence suggesting that Vikings crossed the North Sea to Britain with dogs and horses. Research led by Durham University, UK, and the Vrije Universiteit Brussels, Belgium, examined human and animal remains from Britain’s only known Viking cremation cemetery at […]
Fluctuating Oxygen Levels May Have Accelerated Animal Evolution
Eddie Gonzales Jr. – AncientPages.com – Oxygen levels in the Earth’s atmosphere are likely to have “fluctuated wildly” one billion years ago, creating conditions that could have accelerated the development of early animal life, according to new research. Scientists believe atmospheric oxygen developed in three stages, starting with what is known as the Great Oxidation Event around two […]
First Animals On Earth Could Have Evolved Much Earlier Than The Oldest Fossils Suggest
Eddie Gonzales Jr. – AncientPages.com – The amazing survival strategies of polar marine creatures might help to explain how the first animals on Earth could have evolved earlier than the oldest fossils suggest, according to new research. These first simple and now extinct animals might have lived through some of the most extreme, cold and […]
Reconstructing The Lost Ancient World Of The Marquesas Islands With Unique Plants And Animals
Jan Bartek – AncientPages.com – Polynesian explorers discovered a treasure trove of unique plants and animals when they arrived in the Marquesas Islands of French Polynesia, according to new research. In a unique transdisciplinary study of the Marquesan past, University of Auckland archaeologist Professor Melinda Allen, paleoentomologist Dr. Nick Porch and paleobotanist Tara Lewis of […]