Billion-year-old Fossil Reveals Missing link In The Evolution Of Animals
Source: University of Sheffield
Image of the fossil
A billion year old fossil, which provides a new link in the evolution of animals, has been discovered in the Scottish Highlands.
A team of scientists, led by the University of Sheffield in the UK and Boston College in the USA, has found a microfossil which contains two distinct cell types and could be the earliest multicellular animal ever recorded.
The fossil reveals new insight into the transition of single celled organisms to complex multicellular animals. Modern single celled holozoa include the most basal living animals, the fossil discovered shows an organism which lies somewhere between single cell and multicellular animals.