'Animals Might Be Much Older Than We Thought' for a late Darwin Day

A belated happy Darwin Day!* For today's tale of the scientist credited with formulating the theory of evolution by natural selection, I'm turning once again to PBS Eons mentioning Charles Darwin in Animals Might Be Much Older Than We Thought.

What are animal-like fossils doing in rocks a billion years old, and what does that mean for our understanding of their evolution and geologic time itself? Turns out, there might've been a long, slow-burning fuse that ultimately ignited the Cambrian Explosion.

More than 150 years later, scientists are still answering questions that puzzled Darwin.

Since Kallie Moore mentioned it, here is the video about multicellular Precambrian fossils she recommended, These Fossils Were Supposed To Be Impossible.

Hidden in rocks once thought too old to contain complex life we may have found the animal kingdom’s oldest known predator.

I'm considering showing one of these videos to my Organismal Biology students this summer. If so, welcome to blogging as professional development.

I'm not done with holidays. Stay tuned for Valentines Day. I've had enough of mass shootings. I think I'll turn it into one of my trademark drum corps holidays.

*I got so distracted by the shiny object of bird flu that I forgot about the day until I watched Danny Anduza of Paleontologizing do a Twitch stream about it. Oops!