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Researchers from the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences conducted a study on the Shibantan Biota, a treasure trove of ancient fossils in Hubei. This fossil biota dates back approximately 550 to 543 million years. They identified several types of burrows made by worm-like animals, indicating that complex animal behaviours were already shaping the seafloor environment nearly 10 million years earlier than previously thought.
The research has revealed that life’s evolution from simple to complex in about 1.5 billion years is not a linear process but a pattern of alternating long-term stagnation and relatively rapid growth.
The results also highlighted the profound effects of sudden environmental shifts, such as temperature and oxygen level, on early complex life, offering crucial implications for studying alien life in harsh conditions and evaluating the future habitability of Earth, said Tang Qing from Nanjing University, the first author and one of the corresponding authors of the paper.
A peer-reviewer praised the work as “a long overdue paper to examine the fossil record of the Proterozoic,” which will make for “a plethora of papers following [its] publication.”
SANGHA KOMMUNE (SSR) 