How We Identified One of Earth’s Earliest Animals

PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to ↓ More info below ↓ Scientists had no idea what type of organisms the life forms of the Ediacaran were—lichen, colonies of bacteria, fungi or something else. It turns out, the key to solving the puzzle of Precambrian life was a tiny bit of fossilized fat.  Thanks to Ilya Bobrovskiy for allowing us to use photos from his fieldwork in this video. And thanks to Erik Sperling for allowing us to show a photo of evidence of Dickinsonia feeding traces: