Found: The Oldest Animal Ever on Planet Earth
Otavia antiqua could be the earliest human ancestor, predating the previous earliest known animal by tens of millions of years. Our earliest evolutionary ancestor may have been found in the form of microscopic sponge-like organisms recently discovered inside extremely ancient African rocks. If that turns out to be so, it would displace animal life's previous earliest known ancestor (unremarkably, another sponge-like "metazoan") by predating it by perhaps 100 million years. The small organisms, known as Otavia antiqua, were found inside of a 760-million-year-old rock in Namibia and could very well have been the first multicellular organisms to emerge on the planet, researchers say. That means all animal life--from the precursors to the dinosaurs to the dinosaurs themselves to modern humans--could potentially draw a line straight back to Otavia. It also means that animal life likely emerged tens of millions of years earlier than we previously thought it did. Related Articles200,000-Year-Old Patch of Seagrass...