Science and Technology Daily, Beijing, July 28 (Reporter Zhang Mengran) An evolutionary study published on the 28th in the British "Nature" magazine pointed out that sponges may have lived in the earth's oceans as early as 890 million years ago
Sponges are a simple animal and the most primitive group in the entire animal kingdom.
This time, Elizabeth Turner, a researcher at Laurentian University in Canada, analyzed rock samples taken from 890 million-year-old coral reefs in northwestern Canada.
The research team pointed out that horny sponges may have lived on the surface, inside and around calcium carbonate coral reefs before the earth’s oxygen rose to 90 million years, which is believed to support animal survival.
If these structures can be proven to be sponge body fossils in the next study, then this discovery will imply that early animal evolution occurred independently of the earth’s oxidation events, and that primitive animals were more than 720 million to 635 million years ago.
This article is an English version of an article which is originally in the Chinese language on echemi.com and is provided for information purposes only.
This website makes no representation or warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness ownership or reliability of
the article or any translations thereof. If you have any concerns or complaints relating to the article, please send an email, providing a detailed
description of the concern or complaint, to
service@echemi.com. A staff member will contact you within 5 working days. Once verified, infringing content
will be removed immediately.
