Natural Sciences Active Updated Aug 6, 2026
Pushing back the dawn of animal life
A newly uncovered fossil bed in Canada's Northwest Territories is forcing paleontologists to move back the earliest known evidence of animals moving under their own power and reproducing sexually. The stakes are which, if any, modern animal groups these soft-bodied Ediacaran creatures actually connect to, a question new fossil sites keep reopening.
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Aug 6, 2026 Latest
American Museum of Natural History and Dartmouth researchers led by Scott Evans described an exceptionally rich Ediacaran fossil bed in Canada's Northwest Territories, with specimens dating to roughly 567 million years old, pushing back the earliest evidence of animals moving and reproducing sexually by 5 to 10 million years.
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