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The fat molecules discovered on the fossil of a mysterious creature called Dickinsonia confirmed that he lived 558 million years ago, making him the first known member of the animal kingdom.
The discoveries place its existence 20 million years before the Cambrian explosion event, when important animals began to appear on the fossil record.
The symmetrical oval shaped body was about 1.4 meters long and had rib-like features all over the body.
Its fossil was so well preserved that scientists found cholesterol, which they called "the hallmark" of animal life.
"Scientists have been fighting for more than 75 years on what Dickinsonia and other bizarre fossils of Ediacaran biota were: unicellular giant amoebae, lichens, failed evolutionary experiments or the first animals on Earth" said Brocks.
"The fossil fat now confirms that Dickinsonia is the oldest known animal fossil."
A new approach leads to a breakthrough
Scientists had been intrigued by the fossil for so long because rocks containing fossils had been altered by heat and pressure, according to the ANU.
But the team made the breakthrough discovery after extracting molecules from inside the fossil rather than studying its structure as scientists usually do.
"I took a helicopter to reach this very remote region of the world – where bears and mosquitoes live – where I could find Dickinsonia fossils whose organic matter was still intact," said Ilya Bobrovskiy, the 39 main author of the newspaper.
"I had to hang the edge of a cliff on ropes and dig huge blocks of sandstone, throw them, wash the sandstone and repeat this process until I found the fossils I was looking for," he said. he added.
Dickinsonia has been found to contain a "striking abundance" of cholesterol – 93%, compared with levels of only 10.6% and 11.9% found in deposits immediately above and below the fossil.
The team worked alongside researchers from the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry and the University of Bremen, both in Germany.
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