Dickinsonia : Fossil Discovered
An alleged fossil discovered near Bhopal about two years ago and thought to be of the extinct Dickinsonia turned out to be the impression of a decayed beehive.
- Dickinsonia is an extinct genus of basal animal that lived during the late Ediacaran period on ocean floors around present-day’s Australia, Russia and Ukraine.
- The individual Dickinsonia typically resembles a bilaterally symmetrical ribbed oval.
- Its affinities are presently unknown; its mode of growth is consistent with a stem-group bilaterian affinity, though some have suggested that it belongs to the fungi or even an “extinct kingdom”.
- The discovery of cholesterol molecules in fossils of Dickinsonia lends support to the idea that Dickinsonia was an animal.
- It is believed to be one of the key links between the early, simple organisms and the explosion of life in the Cambrian Period, about 541 million years ago.
