Fossil Shows Earliest Evidence of Animals with Muscles

The fossil 560 million years old was discovered by a team of researchers from United States, and United Kingdom

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/n-l-fossil-shows-earliest-evidence-ever-of-animals-with-muscles-1.2747320

The fossil discovered in Newfoundland, Canada, may be the oldest complex animal, and maybe the earliest evidence of muscular tissue ever known to human. The fossil is dating back 560 million years. It was discovered in the Port Union area on the Bonavista Peninsula in 2009 by a team of researchers from the University of Cambridge, the University of Oxford, and Memorial University in St. John's.  One of the researchers, Jack Matthews, an Oxford PhD candidate in geology said: "It's amazing, because it is completely different from everything we'd seen before in the rocks in Newfoundland; both down at Mistaken Point and up on the Bonavista Peninsula." As Jack said, everything is a frondose organism, but this finding is different, it has symmetrical fibrous structure which is as CBC News say “bundles of fibers in a four-fold symmetrical arrangement, similar to modern Cnidarians.” The fossil falls into the cnidarian group, where can also be found jelly fish, anemones and corals. The fossil has visible and clear bundles that show and represent muscular tissue. It’s been given a name Haootia quadriformis, the first is a biotic word, meaning spirit, or a demon, quadriformis refers to a bundle of fibers that give the creature its shape. Researchers say it is muscle tissue that is the earliest evidence ever on Earth.  

This fossil is not only a rare example of an Ediacaran animal, but also one of the oldest fossils to show the evidence of a muscle. Until now, it was believed that the development of animals started after the Cambrian Explosion, which started 541 million years ago. This evidence shows science that animals existed before than it was thought.  This fossil dates from Ediacaran Period, which was from 635 to 541 million years ago. There has been molecular evidence that animals existed before the Cambrian Explosion, but now there is a fossil that proves that.  This fossil is also the first example of muscular tissue preserved in the fossil record.  The fact that those animals had muscle structure proves they could move and react to their surroundings. Technology is improving every day. This being said, technology had to reach a certain level for this occasion to happen, in other words, technology wasn't on high enough level for this fossil to be found or discovered before the time it was discovered. In order for this fossil to be discovered, money has to be spent, which is an economic problem.

"Hopefully, we can then put them in their proper global geological context, so we can compare these rocks to rocks in Australia and China and Namibia in Africa." Jack Matthews is working with the team from UK, to find the exact time period of this fossil, and the environment this fossil lived in, and developed. I think this is great discovery for science, because it is changing history. It shows science animals were there before than scientists thought. It show technology has to reach high enough level for something like this to be discovered.

Sources: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/n-l-fossil-shows-earliest-evidence-ever-of-animals-with-muscles-1.2747320

http://www.winnipegsun.com/2014/08/27/first-known-fossil-with-muscle-discovered-in-newfoundland

http://edition.cnn.com/video/?/video/us/2014/08/28/dnt-fossil-shows-evidence-of-muscles.cbc&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_topstories+%28RSS%3A+Top+Stories%29&utm_content=Google+International&video_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.rs%2F