Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Science 2 October 1998:
Vol. 282. no. 5386, pp. 19 - 21
DOI: 10.1126/science.282.5386.19b
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

News of the Week

PALEONTOLOGY:
Tracks of Billion-Year-Old Animals?

Richard A. Kerr

On page 80, an international team of scientists argues that wiggly grooves on the surface of ancient sandstone from central India are the tracks of burrowing, half-centimeter-thick, wormlike animals. In February, new fossil embryos from China pushed the first appearance of multicellular animals back tens of millions of years to just before 600 million years ago (Science, 6 February, p. 803), and some molecular biologists sorting through animals' genes have inferred an even earlier origin. Now the new find may extend the fossil record of animals more than 400 million years to 1.1 billion years ago, supporting the oldest molecular estimates of the origins of animals.

Read the Full Text

To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)