S. Conway Morris and D. Grazhdankin
A strange 380-million-year-old fossil that was initially identified as a worm might actually be the last known survivor of an early form of life that no one fully understands. So claims one palaeontologist – but others are sceptical.
The Ediacarans, also known as “vendobionts”, are some of the earliest multicellular organisms known. They were strange, bag-like organisms just a few millimetres thick and sometimes 2 metres long, with an intricate quilted appearance. Nobody knows if they were animals, plants or something else entirely.
Ediacarans first appear in the fossil record about 600 million years ago. They are thought to…
