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The researchers found the oldest clue to the mystery of animal life in ancient rocks and oils, including those from India, dating back at least 100 million years before the famous Cambrian explosion of animal fossils.
Researchers at the University of California, Riverside, in the United States, have detected molecular signs of animal life, called biomarkers, 660 to 635 million years ago, during the Neoproterozoic era.
Made with sponges
In ancient rocks and oils from India, Oman and Siberia, they discovered a steroid compound produced only by sponges, which are among the oldest forms of animal life. The Cambrian explosion refers to the sudden appearance in the fossil record of complex animals with mineralized skeletal remains 541 million years ago.
"We were looking for distinctive and stable biomarkers that indicate the existence of sponges and other primitive animals, rather than unicellular organisms that dominated the Earth for billions of years before the dawn of a complex and multicellular life." said Alex Zumberge. PhD student at UCR.
The biomarker that they have identified, a steroid compound called 26-methylstigmastane (26-mes), has a unique structure whose synthesis is currently known to be synthesized only by some modern sponge species called demosponges.
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