| Title | Scientists Find "Earliest Known Human Ancestor" | |
| Date | Tuesday January 31 2017, @08:17AM | |
| Author | Fnord666 | |
| Topic | ||
| from the how-did-it-fart? dept. | ||
Scientists have found the "earliest known" ancestor of humans, and it had no need of an anus:
Researchers have discovered the earliest known ancestor of humans - along with a vast range of other species. They say that fossilised traces of the 540-million-year-old creature are "exquisitely well preserved". The microscopic sea animal is the earliest known step on the evolutionary path that led to fish and - eventually - to humans. Details of the discovery from central China appear in Nature [DOI: 10.1038/nature21072] [DX] journal.
The research team says that Saccorhytus is the most primitive example of a category of animals called "deuterostomes" which are common ancestors of a broad range of species, including vertebrates (backboned animals). Saccorhytus was about a millimetre in size, and is thought to have lived between grains of sand on the sea bed.
Also at St John's College Cambridge.
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