6 ms·

World's first animal was a pancake-shaped ocean dweller

58 points by okket 8y ago

mikestew 8y ago
Wouldn't the world's first animal be prehistoric by default? I mean, I assume the priority of any first animal on any planet is not going to be scribbling things down for posterity.
- irrational 8y ago
  I wonder what percentage of the population doesn't know what historic/prehistoric actually means?
  - ddoolin 8y ago
    I didn't know, so here it is for others: prehistoric, adjective; relating to or denoting the period before written records:
- jetrink 8y ago
  If we allow that humans and other extant creatures are not prehistoric, then it is possible (though not at all likely) that the first animal is one that is still with us and therefore not prehistoric.
  - skj 8y ago
    Some humans were prehistoric. Others were not.
- pvaldes 8y ago
  I had the same sensation, but the adjective prehistoric is not applied to the animal here. If I'm not wrong could be rephrased as "a pancake-shaped inhabitant of a prehistoric ocean".
  - tantalor 8y ago
    It's ambiguous, but I think "prehistoric" modifies the animal, like "pancake-shaped". If the title were "prehistoric-ocean dweller" then it modifies "ocean". The correct order[1] would be "prehistoric [age] pancake-shaped [shape] ocean dweller [proper?]". [1] https://www.gingersoftware.com/content/grammar-rules/adjectives/order-of-adjectives/ https://www.gingersoftware.com/content/grammar-rules/adjecti...
- dang 8y ago
  The grain of sandpaper you guys scrub titles with is exceedingly fine. We nixed 'prehistoric'.
maxxxxx 8y ago
I wonder if one day we will have technology that does a comprehensive scan for fossils without having to dig them up. Right now it's surprising that they find anything considering how manual and hit and miss the process is. i can't even imagine how much good stuff we will never find with current methods.
mesozoic 8y ago
Oldest known* not first. If this was the first then you're saying there was a major jump from single cellular to billions of cellular animals. Oh accuracy of headlines...
- ddoolin 8y ago
  Would you call single-celled organisms (or anything that came before Dickinsonia) animals?
  - btilly 8y ago
    Yes. See https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/one-oldest-known-animals-tiny-ancient-sponge-180954523/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/one-oldest-known-a... for a fossil of an arguable animal that at 600 million years predates this one. In fact we have evidence that the sponge/other animals split was one of the early taxonomic splits to happen, so it seems likely to me that Dickinsonia could be an ancestor of every animal EXCEPT sponges. Which may well have naturally developed from colony organisms like Stromatolites. (Which in turn date back over 3 billion years.)
  - baddox 8y ago
    As far as I know, Animalia currently only includes multicellular organisms by definition, but maybe different definitions are used for the distant past.
    - a1369209993 8y ago
      I don't know about the definition you're using, but taxonomically speaking there is at least one single-celled organism that's indisputably part of (as in descended from) Animalia: Canis lupus incertae sedis[1][2], a infectious disease that evolved from dogs[3]. (On further wiki-walking, there also appear to be similar diseases evolved from devils, hamsters, and clams[4].) There are also choanoflagellates[5], which might have reverted to single-celled life after a stint as multicellular, or might not, but are in any case more closely related than the opisthokont[6] common ancestor of animals and fungi. (These are rather more relevant to the context of "were there single-celled animal ancestors?". If opisthokonts already formed differentiated clonal colonies, then there was no point in the main [modern normal animals] lineage that was defensibly already animal but not yet multicellular. Apoikozoa[7] allegedly formed colonies, but it's not clear to what extent they were differentiated and/or obligate.) 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canine_transmissible_venereal_tumor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canine_transmissible_venereal_... 2: https://www.quora.com/Has-a-complex-organism-like-a-dog-ever-evolved-into-a-single-cell-organism/answer/Israel-Ramirez https://www.quora.com/Has-a-complex-organism-like-a-dog-ever... 3: https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gde.2015.03.005 https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gde.2015.03.005 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmissible_cancer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmissible_cancer 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choanoflagellata https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choanoflagellata 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opisthokonta https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opisthokonta 7: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apoikozoa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apoikozoa
drumttocs8 8y ago
Oldest discovered != first
- nvahalik 8y ago
  Yep. Since it is unable to be observed it cannot be proven.

58 points by okket 8y ago

Wouldn't the world's first animal be prehistoric by default? I mean, I assume the priority of any first animal on any planet is not going to be scribbling things down for posterity.

irrational 8y ago
I wonder what percentage of the population doesn't know what historic/prehistoric actually means?
- ddoolin 8y ago
  I didn't know, so here it is for others: prehistoric, adjective; relating to or denoting the period before written records:
jetrink 8y ago
If we allow that humans and other extant creatures are not prehistoric, then it is possible (though not at all likely) that the first animal is one that is still with us and therefore not prehistoric.
- skj 8y ago
  Some humans were prehistoric. Others were not.
pvaldes 8y ago
I had the same sensation, but the adjective prehistoric is not applied to the animal here. If I'm not wrong could be rephrased as "a pancake-shaped inhabitant of a prehistoric ocean".
- tantalor 8y ago
  It's ambiguous, but I think "prehistoric" modifies the animal, like "pancake-shaped". If the title were "prehistoric-ocean dweller" then it modifies "ocean". The correct order[1] would be "prehistoric [age] pancake-shaped [shape] ocean dweller [proper?]". [1] https://www.gingersoftware.com/content/grammar-rules/adjectives/order-of-adjectives/ https://www.gingersoftware.com/content/grammar-rules/adjecti...
dang 8y ago
The grain of sandpaper you guys scrub titles with is exceedingly fine. We nixed 'prehistoric'.

maxxxxx 8y ago

I wonder if one day we will have technology that does a comprehensive scan for fossils without having to dig them up. Right now it's surprising that they find anything considering how manual and hit and miss the process is. i can't even imagine how much good stuff we will never find with current methods.

mesozoic 8y ago

Oldest known* not first. If this was the first then you're saying there was a major jump from single cellular to billions of cellular animals. Oh accuracy of headlines...

ddoolin 8y ago
Would you call single-celled organisms (or anything that came before Dickinsonia) animals?
- btilly 8y ago
  Yes. See https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/one-oldest-known-animals-tiny-ancient-sponge-180954523/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/one-oldest-known-a... for a fossil of an arguable animal that at 600 million years predates this one. In fact we have evidence that the sponge/other animals split was one of the early taxonomic splits to happen, so it seems likely to me that Dickinsonia could be an ancestor of every animal EXCEPT sponges. Which may well have naturally developed from colony organisms like Stromatolites. (Which in turn date back over 3 billion years.)
- baddox 8y ago
  As far as I know, Animalia currently only includes multicellular organisms by definition, but maybe different definitions are used for the distant past.
  - a1369209993 8y ago
    I don't know about the definition you're using, but taxonomically speaking there is at least one single-celled organism that's indisputably part of (as in descended from) Animalia: Canis lupus incertae sedis[1][2], a infectious disease that evolved from dogs[3]. (On further wiki-walking, there also appear to be similar diseases evolved from devils, hamsters, and clams[4].) There are also choanoflagellates[5], which might have reverted to single-celled life after a stint as multicellular, or might not, but are in any case more closely related than the opisthokont[6] common ancestor of animals and fungi. (These are rather more relevant to the context of "were there single-celled animal ancestors?". If opisthokonts already formed differentiated clonal colonies, then there was no point in the main [modern normal animals] lineage that was defensibly already animal but not yet multicellular. Apoikozoa[7] allegedly formed colonies, but it's not clear to what extent they were differentiated and/or obligate.) 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canine_transmissible_venereal_tumor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canine_transmissible_venereal_... 2: https://www.quora.com/Has-a-complex-organism-like-a-dog-ever-evolved-into-a-single-cell-organism/answer/Israel-Ramirez https://www.quora.com/Has-a-complex-organism-like-a-dog-ever... 3: https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gde.2015.03.005 https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gde.2015.03.005 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmissible_cancer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmissible_cancer 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choanoflagellata https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choanoflagellata 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opisthokonta https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opisthokonta 7: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apoikozoa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apoikozoa

drumttocs8 8y ago

Oldest discovered != first

nvahalik 8y ago
Yep. Since it is unable to be observed it cannot be proven.