News Paleontology

Cholesterol traces suggest these mysterious fossils were animals, not fungi

These alienlike organisms lived more than 541 million years ago

fossils

ANIMAL, VEGETABLE, MINERAL?  Enigmatic, alienlike fossils, which date to between 570 million and 541 million years ago, included different species of the oval-shaped Dickinsonia (shown).

Ilya Bobrovskiy/ Australian National Univ.

By Carolyn Gramling

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