The fossil was discovered in the U.K.
A bizarre, tentacled creature that lived in the deep ocean 560 million years ago resembled a goblet crammed full of wriggling fingers. It may be an ancient relative of modern jellyfish and the earliest known predator in the animal kingdom, analysis of a newly described fossil suggests.
It's almost unheard of for Precambrian fossils to resemble forms seen in animals alive today, so the discovery of an Ediacaran animal resembling a jellyfish is exceptional, said Philip Donoghue, a professor of palaeobiology at the University of Bristol in England, who was not involved in the study."They found an animal, a member of a modern group of animals, in the Precambrian, where they're classically not meant to be found," Donoghue told Live Science.
On their 2007 expedition, the scientists focused their search on a rockface that rose from the forest floor at a 45-degree angle and wore a thick coat of lichen and dirt. The team dug into the rockface while dangling from ropes, using toothbrushes, toothpicks and high-pressure water jets to expose any fossils hidden under the muck.
"This is the first creature, the first animal that we're aware of that actually grew a skeleton," Wilby said. Its tentacle structure hints that A. attenboroughii likely fed on plankton and protists, which would make it the earliest known predator in the animal kingdom.
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