A new discovery can upset the chronology of life on Earth, as it was known until now. These are tiny fossils , some in the shape of a filament and others similar to fleshy protrusions, which, according to the scientists of the Swedish Museum of Natural History, authors of the find, resemble red algae (of the phylum Rhodophyta ). The bundles of threads that can be seen in its interior structures are indeed reminiscent of current forms of marine life.
The importance of these fossils, preserved in sedimentary rocks from Chitrakoot (India) , lies in their age: they would probably be 1,600 million years old, that is, 400 million years older than the oldest red algae –and plants– recorded up to the date. This would greatly delay the beginning of complex life on Earth, made up of eukaryotic cells ; that is, with a nucleus and an envelope, like those that make up plants and animals.
“The new findings are the oldest that we can, with some confidence, relate to living groups of multicellular eukaryotes, ” Stefan Bengtson, professor of palaeozoology at the Swedish Museum of Natural History, told the SINC agency. In any case, scientists have not detected DNA remains to certify one hundred percent the dating and provenance of the fossils.
The discoveries of primitive complex beings have been sporadic and difficult to interpret, but these presumed ancestors of the red algae could considerably delay the beginning of the Phanerozoic period or “time of visible life”, when multicellular entities became the masters of our planet. Before, the only earthlings were single-celled creatures without a nucleus and other characteristics of eukaryotic cells.
The study has been published in the journal PLOS Biology .
Photo: X-ray tomography of the fossil. Credit: Stefan Bengtson / CCAL
