Man’s resemblance to strange creatures is striking: organisms lived 550 million years ago. years

But the authors of a recent study claim otherwise, publishes sciencealert.com. According to scientists, the ancient life forms that lived on Earth during the Ediakar period, 539-570 million BC. years ago, some genes were similar to modern multi-cells, including humans. Of course, the similarity in this case is quite conditional.

“None of these animals had a head or skeleton,” explained Mary Droser, a paleobiologist at the University of California, Riverside. “Many of them probably looked like three-dimensional bath mats on the seabed, round discs sticking out of the environment.”

Mr. Droser has extensive experience studying unusual organisms from Earth’s distant past. A year ago he led a study in which one of the representatives of the Ediakar fauna was discovered Ikaria wariootia – a strange, inert lump, the size of a grain of rice.

This creature is likely the oldest ancestor of all bilaterally symmetrical animals. It is true that not all Ediakar residents have connections to modern animals.

More than 40 species from this period were identified, including the most famous, egg-shaped Dickinsonia and another named in honor of President Barack Obama. By the way, it is not always easy to accurately classify such ancient life forms.

“These animals are so strange and different that it is difficult to classify them in modern taxonomy based solely on visual data,” said Droser. “Unfortunately, we cannot extract DNA.”

Unable to analyze the genetic data of these creatures, scientists must steer clear of the situation by examining fossils. Fortunately, ancient remains can reveal a lot of information.

Following a new Droser study, led by Scott Evans, a paleontologist at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, the researchers thoroughly studied four representatives of the Ediakar period fauna: Dickinsonia, Ikaria, reminiscent of a slug Kimberella and hemispherical Tribrachidium.

Based on the data collected in the analysis and the hypotheses of how these creatures moved, fed and generally lived on the ancient seafloor, the researchers stated that the strange animals probably had a primitive nervous system whose functions were proportionate and regulated. by the same elements of genetic regulation used by modern animals, including people.

“Research has shown that some of these long-lived creatures had genetic mechanisms responsible for multicellularity, axial polarity, the musculoskeletal and nervous systems,” the study authors write. “These characteristics have helped to better define the phylogenetic relationships of some of the most important members of the fauna of the Ediakar period and to form a more precise view of the evolution of the first multicellulars.”

The research team named many different genes, possibly related to multicellularity, immune system, nerves, apoptosis (genetically programmed cell death), axial structure (differences in the sides of the body such as the anterior and posterior, left and law) and other features.

Although we know very little about these truly ancient animals, the biological traits that have formed over millions of years that unite us suggest that they may not be as strange as they seem.

“I am extremely fascinated by the fact that these genes were possessed by creatures that became extinct more than 500 million years ago,” Evans marveled.