Dickinsonia costata
Sprigg, 1947
Late Ediacaran (Vendian)
White Sea, Russia

Dickinsonia is typical of the Ediacaran biota. Known only in the form of imprints and casts in sandstone beds, it is flat and oval, with its isomers organized in an alternating pattern symmetry, its classification as an animal is uncertain due to caracteristics different from current life forms. The discovery in 2018 of cholesterol molecules in fossils of Dickinsonia lends support to the idea that Dickinsonia was an animal. It lacks any convincing evidence for a mouth, anus or gut, and appears to have fed by absorption on its bottom surface.

Good preservation. No reconstruction.

Acquisition: 2019-05-03

Ediacarian

Ediacarian is the last period of the precambrian. It is named after the Ediacara Hills of South Australia, where the first fossils of this era were found in 1947. The Ediacaran marks the first appearance of widespread multicellular fauna following the end of "Snowball Earth" glaciation events. Ediacaran biota is quite enigmatic. It is represented by a few modern groups of animals but also by now-extinct relatively simple animal with strange forms and shapes.