Animals quickly colonized freshwater

Fossilized worm burrows show that marine life rapidly adapted to other ecosystems

Earth’s early animals moved upstream not long after conquering the seas, newly discovered fossils show.

EARLY WORM Squiggles in this 530-million-year-old Californian rock come from the wormlike animal Arenicolites — the earliest evidence for creatures living in freshwater environments, scientists say. Martin Kennedy and Mary Droser/Geology 2011

Rocks near the California-Nevada border preserve traces of tiny worms that squiggled through river mud some 530 million years ago.