It was in the year 2021 that a discovery of a rare 550-million-year-old fossil of Indian Dickinsonia, a primitive marine animal, was found at the Bhimbetka rock shelters near Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. Back then, the fossil was dated to be 570 million years. However, after two years, the fossil turned out to be something else!
World’s Oldest Animal Fossil Isn’t Even A Fossil
The fossil, which attracted a lot of interest and was covered by the international media, was later shown to be an impression of a fallen beehive left behind and not a real fossil.
The Vindhyan Supergroup, one of the world’s largest basins and an archive of more than one billion years of Earth’s history, has been the site of numerous fossil discoveries that help to explain how the earliest life on Earth began and evolved, according to a statement from the Department of Science and Technology.
A group of Ediacaran palaeontologists at the Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeosciences (BSIP) were inspired to take a look and continue their search for another comparable fossil after learning about an Ediacaran fossil from a group of local American scientists.
The reason for this is that edicaran fossils, which are thought to be the oldest creatures to have lived on the planet roughly 550 million years ago, are of great interest to palaeontologists and evolutionary biologists.
Also Read: Archaeologists Unearth Fossil Of Meat-Eating Dinosaur Species, Spinosaurus In Spain
This Was How They Found Out It Was Actually A Beehive
The group of scientists went to the location and examined the fossil Dickinsonia tenuis, a significant Ediacaran fossil (the oldest animal), which was discovered in the Bhimbetka Cave Shelter, a site recognised by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, in 2021.
In contrast to fossils, which are typically maintained on the bedding plane of the rock strata, the sample was not totally preserved on the bedding plane, according to the researchers who conducted a field examination of the location where the fossil was allegedly discovered. Both the bedding plane and the transversely cut face of the Maihar Sandstone outcrop have portions of it intact.
On the same bedding plane, even both alive and dead honey beehives both alive and dead were seen. This proof demonstrated that Dickinsonia was mistakenly identified as the reported fossil.
Cover Image credits : Canva
First Published: June 17, 2023 1:14 PM