Protist movement

Who needs to be multicellular or bilaterally symmetrical when you could be "blind, brainless, and completely covered in mud" instead?

A single-celled ball about the size of a grape may provide an explanation for one of the mysteries of fossil history.

Writing in Current Biology, researchers say the creature leaves tracks on the seabed which mirror fossilised tracks left up to 1.8 billion years ago. . .

Dr Matz says all tracks which predate the rapid evolution of life seen in the Cambrian explosion could come from protists.

"Pretty much anything within the Precambrian fossil record can in principle be attributed to large protozoans, from the earliest traces and fossils of the Stirling formation," he says.

Posted by David on November 21, 2008 3:26 PM