14 DAY TRIAL // Experts have recently produced a new three-dimensional model of a marine animal that lived close to the moment when the first life forms appeared. In the August 4 issue of the esteemed scientific journal Biology Letters, scientists at the Imperial College London present the computer simulation of the blob-like creature called Drakozoon. They say that it lived more than 425 million years ago, in a time when living things looked significantly different than they do today.
For many years, experts on evolution have been drawing attention to the fact that the earliest creatures which roamed the Earth's oceans and land did not resemble those living today. In fact, they can be regarded as nature's failed experiments. The bodies of the first complex organisms were not adapted to the conditions of their environment, which is one of the main reasons why they never managed to survive. Researchers have been curious to gain additional insight into how the earliest animals looked like, and the 3D model of Drakozoon is a good starting point.
“Excitingly, our 3D model brings back to life a creature that until recently no one knew even existed, and provides us with a window into the life of Drakozoon. We think this tiny blob of jelly survived by clinging onto rocks and hard shelled creatures, making a living by plucking microscopic morsels out of seawater. By looking at this primitive creature, we also get one tantalizing step closer to understanding what the earliest creatures on Earth looked like,” explains ICL Department of Earth Science and Engineering expert Dr Mark Sutton.
The archaeologists who discovered the only known fossil of Drakozoon in the world say that the creature lived in the Silurian Period, which spanned from 444 to 416 million years ago. The creature itself was about 3 millimeters long, and most likely had a leathery skin. This is precisely why experts never found many preserved specimens. Instances when organisms made entirely of soft tissues get fossilized are very rare, and researchers were lucky to find a fossil of Drakozoon in the Herefordshire Lagerstatte fossil deposit, in England.