Fossils of Dickinsonia, one of Earth's oldest animals, found in Madhya Pradesh Dickinsonia is an extinct genus of basal animal that lived during the late Ediacaran period in a geographical area now divided into Australia, China, India, Russia and Ukraine. New Delhi: Researchers have discovered fossils of one of the Earth's earliest known multicellular animals -- the 550-million-year-old Dickinsonia -- on the roof of the Bhimbetka rock shelters in Madhya Pradesh. Dickinsonia is an extinct genus of basal animal that lived during the late Ediacaran period in a geographical area now divided into Australia, China, India, Russia and Ukraine. The individual Dickinsonia typically resembles a bilaterally symmetrical ribbed oval. Its fossils are known only in the form of imprints and casts in sandstone beds.