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Science 15 February 2002:
Vol. 295. no. 5558, p. 1209
DOI: 10.1126/science.295.5558.1209a
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News of the Week

PALEONTOLOGY:
Earliest Animal Tracks or Just Mud Cracks?

Richard A. Kerr

Two groups report in the February issue of Geology that putative worm tracks in sandstone from central India previously dated to 1.1 billion years ago are in fact a whopping 1.6 billion years old. That predates the earliest generally accepted trace fossil of a complex animal--dated at 575 million years ago--by about a billion years. To some researchers, such a long gap strains credulity. Instead of traces of life, they are now seeing meaningless doodlings in ancient, squishy muds.

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