A sensational “fossil” discovery in 2020 of a uncommon 550 million-year-old life type has turned out to be “a case of mistaken identification,” in response to a brand new examine.
The “fossil” discovered on the Bhimbetka Rock Shelters cave web site in India’s Bhopal metropolis was declared as one which belonged to the primitive animal Dickinsonia tenuis.
New analysis, printed just lately within the journal Gondwana Analysis, nevertheless, discovered it was simply the imprint of a just lately decayed “big beehive”.
The 2020 discovery was additionally printed in the identical journal.
It was extensively reported as proof that Dickinsonia – one of many earliest animals to have lived on Earth – was probably current within the Indian subcontinent at a time when India, Australia, South America, Africa, and Antarctica had been a single landmass.
Scientists behind the sooner examine had additionally argued that the Indian discovering resembled a Dickinsonia tenuis fossil beforehand present in South Australia.
It was therefore urged that the supercontinent Gondwanaland might have been assembled 550 million years in the past and that Dickinsonia might need additionally been current at comparable temperate and subtropical latitudes.
“The discover attracted the eye of The New York Occasions, The Climate Channel and the scientific journal Nature in addition to many Indian newspapers,” stated scientists, together with these from the College of Florida (UF) who had been behind the most recent analysis.
“We visited the location in December 2022 and located the proof for Dickisonia missing,” they wrote within the new examine.
“You would possibly say, ‘Okay, nicely what’s the large deal if they’re 550 million or a billion years previous?’ Properly, there are many implications,” Joseph Meert, a UF professor of geology, additionally behind new findings, stated in a press release.
“One has to do with the paleogeography on the time, what was occurring to continents, the place the continents had been positioned, how they had been assembled. And it was a interval when life was going via a serious change, from quite simple fossils to extra advanced fossils,” Dr Meert added.
What at first appeared like a Dickinsonia ‘fossil’ (on the left) had decayed and began peeling off the rock in just some quick years (on the suitable), an indication it was one thing way more trendy
(Gregory Retallack/Joe Meert)
The UF scientists stated that for the reason that 2020 discovery, the item had additionally “seemingly decayed considerably”, one thing “fairly uncommon” for a fossil.
“The fossil was peeling off the rock,” Dr Meert added.
As an alternative, it resembled “decayed components of recent big honeybee hives,” scientists identified.
In addition they discovered that the “fossil” was not a part of the rock on the web site, however was as a substitute “connected as a tracery of waxy materials” above its floor.
Photographs from the unique examine additionally revealed “honeycombed constructions” throughout the purported “fossil”.
“A more in-depth look demonstrates that the impression resulted from decay of a contemporary beehive which was connected to a fractured rock floor which, at first look, resembles Dickinsonia,” they defined of their examine.
The authors of the unique paper additionally agreed with the most recent findings.
“It’s uncommon however important for scientists to admit errors when new proof is found,” Gregory Retallack from the College of Oregon within the US, one of many authors of the 2020 paper, stated in a press release.
