Rise of collagen-eating microbes may help explain gaps in the fossil record
Researchers have identified that the evolution of collagen-eating microbes may explain why soft-bodied animals from the Ediacaran Period were preserved as fossils. This discovery offers a potential solution to a long-standing mystery regarding why later soft-bodied creatures disappeared from the fossil record.
Why it matters
This finding provides a critical missing link in evolutionary biology, helping scientists better understand the preservation conditions of early life on Earth.
edited by Sadie Harley , reviewed by Robert Egan
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Add to Preferred Sources Credit: CC0 Public Domain Researchers may have uncovered the reason why some of Earth's earliest animals were commonly preserved as fossils—even though they were essentially fragile "bags of goo"—while later soft-bodied creatures have largely disappeared from the fossil record.
The researchers, led by the University of Cambridge, say that the reason may lie in the evolution of microscopic organisms capable of breaking down collagen, a structural protein found in animal tissue.
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