News Paleontology

520-million-year-old animal fossils might not be animals after all

The specimens may be an ancient type of algae, not creatures known as bryozoans

A photo of a fossil with two dark brown pieces attached to the shell.

Protomelission gatehousei was thought to be a marine animal called a bryozoan. New fossils suggest that the ancient organisms (two dark brown pieces seen attached to a fossil shell) were actually a type of algae.

Zhang Xiguang

By Sid Perkins

A species that lived about 520 million years ago and was thought to be the oldest known bryozoan is instead a type of colony-forming algae, a new study proposes.