The contents of the last meal consumed by the earliest animals known to inhabit Earth more than 550 million years ago has unearthed new clues about the physiology of our earliest animal ancestors, according to scientists from The Australian National University (ANU).
The most famous fossils from the Cambrian explosion of animal life over half a billion years ago are very unlike their modern counterparts.
Morphological analysis of the discovered specimen’s tooth shapes helped to determine that the specimen was one of the earliest nimravids dating back 37 to 40 million years. Sabertoothed nimravids were early members of Carnivoramorpha, but dogs and cats did not evolve from them. Changes in ecosystems may have driven the evolution and rise of nimravids.
New research at the University of Leicester has transformed scientists’ understanding of how spectacular fossils with delicate soft tissues form.