Did Animals Live a Billion Years Ago?
Most scientists agree that the first animals emerged about 600 million years ago, during the Ediacaran period. A simple oval fossil, just 200 microns in diameter, named Vernanimalcula (“small spring animal”) represents the first known body fossil of an animal (although some scientists believe the fossil is a relic created through inorganic processes, or a fossil of a giant bacterium). Vernanimalcula was discovered in 2005 in a phosphatic fossil deposit in Guizhou Province, China, known as the Doushantuo Formation. The Doushantuo Formation also has some fossils interpreted as embryos dated to 630 million years ago, just a few million years after the Varangian/Marinoan glaciation, one of the most severe Ice Ages in planetary history. Despite the first body fossils being dated to 600 million years ago, there is some intriguing evidence that animals may have existed before this date, as far back as a billion years ago or even slightly more. Advocates of the idea point to the fact that, for
