Ediacaran Sea Creature May Hold Earliest Evidence of Right-Handedness

10 July 2026 at 18:57

Fossils of Spriggina floundersi from South Australia; white arrows highlight lifted areas, white triangle indicates divergent bend angle of adjacent modules. Scale bars - 10 cm. Image credit: Evans et al., doi: 10.1038/s41598-026-53857-x.

Spriggina floundersi, a marine species that lived during the Ediacaran period 550 million years ago, is one of Earth’s earliest bilaterally symmetrical animals.

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Earth’s Earliest Animals May Have Thrived Too Easily to Evolve

Sci.News

By: News Staff

10 June 2026 at 20:25

Artist’s reconstruction of the Fractofusus community: the bottom right features a large Fractofusus around which there are 5 to 8 medium specimens clustered; each of the medium specimens also has small specimens clustered around them; the small specimens therefore form an independent double cluster pattern, namely clusters of clusters. Image credit: C.G. Kenchington.

Fossils from some of the oldest-known animals on Earth, dating from 574 million years ago (Ediacaran period), suggest that cloning, not competition, dominated the Ediacaran seas, slowing evolution until environmental stress helped drive the rise of sexual reproduction and a burst of biodiversity.

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