Follow
555-million-year sea critter reveals secrets about Earth’s past.
Ever wondered about how our warm and fuzzy looked in its early days? It should have been a sight for sore eyes. Continents still forming, life springing up from everywhere, the air as pure as a mountain spring. Lately, a team of scientists discovered a window to the past. Tribrachidium fossil reveals Earth’s past.
By using advanced computational methods, the team of scientists from the University of Toronto, were capable of actually recreating Tribrachidium’s feeding behavior. The little critter was a child of the ocean, which lived on Earth approximately 555 million years ago.
Based on their projections regarding Tribrachidium’s dining etiquette, the researchers were also able to create a very accurate picture of Earth’s past. Based on their findings, corroborated with the critters feeding habits, the team of scientists established that Earth’s ecosystem was much more complex than anticipated.
The sea critter live during the Ediacaran period. This epoch, which bears the name of the Ediacaran Hill, situated in South Australia, is considered to be the epoch that put an end to the Neoproterozoic Era. The Ediacaran period started 635 million years before the ever known Cambrian epoch.
Getting back to the critter, the team of scientist managed to reconstruct the sea critter’s morphology by using a novel technique called computational fluid dynamics. Mostly used in the field of engineering, this techniques involves the use of algorithms and numerical analysis in order to predict a fluid’s movement.
Based on their computations, the Tribrachidium used suspension to his advantage in order to eat.The critter would float in water and using its feeding apparatus, it was capable of actually sucking out food from the surrounding environment.
Doctor Marc Laflamme, a fellow assistant professor, working for the project declared that he only through novel techniques were we able to see the little sea critter in action. He also added that the team used other methods in order to study the long lost sea creature. Along with computational fluid dynamic, the team of researchers also used a sophisticated CT scanner in order to render a 3D representation of the sea creature.
Their appraisal of the situation is that former theories regarding Earth’s early ecosystems were erroneous by nature. Based on their projections, it is very likely that in its early years of life, Earth actually held the secret of complex life. Moreover, there weren’t only single-cell organisms developing on Earth surface.
According to the recent research, it would seem that Earth was harboring an intricate ecosystem in its first years of life.
Image source:www.wikimedia.org
