You come from this....Oldest Animal Ever Discovered [View all]

[Ichingcarpenter]

Does it look like your relative? Its a sponge.













JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — Scientists have discovered fossils in Namibia that they say are the world's first animals.

The sponge-like fossils dubbed Otavia antiqua were found at Etosha National Park in northern Namibia and at other sites in the southern African country, a team of international researchers said in an article published in the South African Journal of Science.

Otavia antiqua is said to be a tiny creature that lived in the world's earliest oceans, surviving in low-oxygen conditions.

While animal life was previously thought to have emerged 600 million to 650 million years ago, these fossils were discovered in rocks dated to between 760 million and 550 million years ago, researchers said.

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The discovery is "extremely significant, as these organisms represent the earliest record of metazoan life," placing the origins of animals at 100 million years to 150 million years earlier than previously accepted, wrote Robert Gess from South Africa's Wits University, in a separate article published in the journal.

"The rocks of southern Africa have yet again yielded up key evidence regarding the history of life," Gess wrote.


http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/africa/120206/namibia-fossils-first-animals-otavia-antiqua-etosha-national-park