1-Billion-Year-Old Fossil Life Discovered: Scientists Say It Has Never Been Described Before

New research recently showed, on a Scottish loch's shores, lie geologic deposits, specifically one-billion-year-old fossil, and within the rocks is proof of the earliest identified non-marine multicellular organism.

A GIZMODO report said, it is a fascinating new finding in the story of the manner animals may have evolved in from the "soup of early Earth."

A team of palynologists, microscopists, paleobiologists, and geologists, excavated and described the fossil microorganism identified as Bicellum brasieri.

The discovery appears to be a member of the 'holozoa,' the group of organisms that have animals and their one-celled relatives, though not fungi.

As indicated in the paper, A possible billion-year-old holozoan with differentiated multicellularity, published in Current Biology, the rock deposit from which the fossil appeared, on the beaches of Loch Torridon in Scotland, has been examined for years.

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'Primitive Spherical Organism' Found

Specifically, a study, Earth's earliest non-marine eukaryotes, published in Nature by the same research team described the assemblies at larger length. This new study dived into the B. brasieri's complexity.

According to University of Sheffieldpaleobiologist, Charles Wellman, they have found a "primitive spherical organism" made up of an arrangement of a pair of distinct types of cells, the first step towards a multifaceted multicellular structure.

In a press release, Wellman said, the discovery is something that has never been described in the past in the fossil record.

The fossil established by a stereoblast of firmly packed cells bounded by a layer of sausage-shaped cells. It is challenging to identify exactly what the roles of the two different types of cells were, although it is probable they may have had some reproductive consequences.

Paleobiologist at the Boston College, Paul Strother, who's also the lead author of this new research said, in order for life to make the colossal switch from simple unicellular organisms to multifaceted multicellular ones, organisms needed to evolve a genome that regulated the nature of cell division, not to mention the cells were sticking together, and the manner they differentiate and isolate tissues.

The thing that's exciting about this one-billion-year-old fossil is that, even though it is an exceptionally simple morphology, it evidently had the capabilities of some of the essential traits required to become multicellular.

1-Billion-Year-Old Fossil

Being quite simple yet multicellular, this one-billion-year-old fossil, appeared to more closely associated with Ichthyosporea and Pluriformea holozoan groups, some unicellular microorganisms, the researchers explained.

Essentially, the rock deposited from which B. basieri took place was a freshwater environ, in contrast to the marine environs usually associated with the occurrence of multifaceted life.

A similar MSN News report said, earlier findings have verified the existence of such olden multicellular life in oceans, some even dated back more than two billion years, it now appears probable that more than a single evolutionary pathway led to the original multicellular lifeforms.

The Torridonian fossils off the loch, the study authors described in their research, may hold ore olden microscopic life to inspect.

It appears, there may have been numerous cauldrons of life, burbling away, a long time ago, that cooked up a different array of the olden lifeforms to evolve into animals as they are known today.

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