Page 33 - The Dinosaur Book and Other Wonders of the Prehistoric World (DK-Smithsonian)

The head may have
had eyes and a mouth.

Spriggina Tribrachidium

Tribrachidium
resembled a sea
anemone and had
a circular body that
was made up of The first animals
three similar parts.

The body was divided into many
segments, but it had no obvious legs.
The
first known
Precambrian fossil,
The largest known fossils of Charnia, was
Dickinsonia are more than 4 ft (1.3 m)
long and show a distinctive body found by a 15-year-
with a central groove, but no one old schoolboy.
knows if it even had a head. Dickinsonia

Ediacara Hills of Australia in 1946 were also lived rooted on the seabed, like modern corals.
Precambrian, and more than 600 million years Others, like Spriggina, were free-living animals
old. These were some of the first animals on that could roam or swim in search of food, and
Earth. Since then, similar fossils have been some, including Dickinsonia, were so unlike
found in North America, Africa, and Russia. any modern animal that their nature and way
Many, including Charnia, were animals that of life are still a mystery. 31

US_030-031_The_first_animals.indd 31 23/04/18 6:16 PM