Fossil of Creature with ‘Bizarre’ Tentacles May be the World’s Oldest Known Predator

Scientists discovered a 560-million-year-old fossil in the UK which could be the world's oldest known predator.

According to LiveScience, the ancient fossil resembles a modern jellyfish with 'bizarre' tentacles and may be the earliest known predator in the animal kingdom. The tentacled creature also resembled a "goblet crammed full of wriggling fingers", analysis shows.

The newly identified fossil was uncovered more than a decade ago in an outcrop of volcanic and sedimentary rocks called the Bradgate Formation in Leicestershire, England, located in Charnwood Forest. It was dated back to about 557 million to 562 million years ago, during the Ediacaran period (635 million to 541 million years ago).

Almost 'Unheard of' and 'Exceptional'

Although not involved in the study, Philip Donoghue, a palaeobiology professor at the University of Bristol, England, said that the discovery of the Ediacaran animal resembling a jellyfish is exceptional, considering that even a Precambrian fossil resembling the form of animals today is "almost unheard of".

"This fossil's probably the oldest one recognized, with quite convincing evidence, to be a member of one of the living phyla," or large groups of related animals, Donoghue said.

The creature was named Auroralumina attenboroughii in honor of Sir David Attenborough and described in a new study, published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.

"I think it looks like the Olympic torch, with its tentacles being the flames," said Oxford University's Dr Frankie Dunn, who reported the discovery.

First Animal to Grow a Skeleton

After the first major fossil discoveries in Charnwood Forest which date back to the 1950s, many paleontologists have traveled there to hunt for Precambrian life. In fact, on a 2007 expedition, the team dug and exposed a thousand fossils found on a rockface that rose from the forest floor at a 45-degree angle, underneath a thick coat of dirt.

The fossils which represented 20 to 30 different species were "beautifully preserved", some "absolutely stunning", according to paleobiologist Philip Wilby, a team leader for Palaeontology at the British Geological Survey and senior author of the study.

Analysis of the A. attenboroughii suggests that there was predation in the animal kingdom by about 20 million years, and it's probably also the first example of an organism with a true skeleton, BBC reported.

It was proved that it is likely a forerunner of cnidaria - the group of species that today includes jellyfish - which has a heritage that stretches further back into the Ediacaran.

"This is the cast-iron evidence of modern-looking organisms in the Pre-Cambrian. That means the fuse for the Cambrian explosion was probably quite long," Dr Wilby said. The analysis of Auroralumina's features also links it to the medusozoa sub-grouping within the cnidaria, and therefore most closely resembles a medusozoan in its immobile, rooted stage.

The fossil analysis also implies that cnidarians and their sibling lineage must have also evolved by this time, shedding light on what animals were like before them.