Earliest example of right-handedness found in Australian fossils
Paleontologists have identified the earliest evidence of right-handedness in the 550-million-year-old fossilized remains of a wormlike creature called Spriggina floundersi. The study suggests that directional preference is an ancient evolutionary trait present in the earliest animal communities.
Why it matters
Provides a deeper understanding of evolutionary biology and the origins of fundamental behavioral traits in animal life.
If you happen to be right-handed, you may be able to trace the origins of that trait to a wormlike animal that lived about 550 million years ago and had a tendency to bend to the right. Spriggina floundersi appeared in oceans during the Ediacaran Period (635 million to 542 million years ago) at the dawn of the first forms of animal life. The small creature’s flat, segmented body, known only from fossils found in what’s now South Australia, was a stretched-out oval. It tapered to a tip at one end and had a large, curved structure at the other, making it the earliest known animal with a head. Paleontologists described the first Spriggina fossils in 1958. Since then, scientists have debated whether the animal could move on its own.
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