The world’s best-preserved natural mummy has been discovered in southern China, perfectly preserved in three-dimensional space despite having died at least 540 million years ago.
This specimen is considered to be the “ancestor of all species” – named Protocodium sinense, the first and oldest green algae from the Ediacaran period (635-539 million years ago).
The specimen was excavated from the Dengying Formation in Shaanxi Province, southern China, and is preserved in three-dimensional space, allowing paleontologists to explore its internal structure with unprecedented accuracy.
Close-up of the world’s most astonishing “mummy” – (Photo: BMC Biology).
This discovery is a diamond find for paleontologists, as merely locating a fossil of a soft-bodied organism is challenging, but finding one preserved in such detail down to the sub-cellular level, akin to an intricate mummy untouched by time, is unparalleled.
According to Sci-News, lead author Dr. Cédric Aria from the University of Toronto and the Royal Ontario Museum, Canada, stated: “The discovery of this specimen touches on the origins of the entire plant kingdom and lays the foundation for organisms before the Cambrian explosion over half a billion years ago, when the first modern ecosystems on Earth emerged.”
This peculiar algae species consists of small spherical bacteria about 0.5 mm in diameter, resembling large pollen grains, covered by countless tiny dome-shaped scales.
Thanks to 3D imaging, Dr. Aria and colleagues identified the dome-shaped surface as part of a complex single cell containing thin filaments known as siphons. This morphology is typical of some modern unicellular green algae that contain multiple nuclei.
Detailed images of the perfectly preserved structure of the ancient organism – (Photo: BMC Biology).
In addition to its extremely small size, Protocodium sinense closely resembles modern Codium, a type of green algae found in many oceans around the world.
From an evolutionary perspective, green algae like ancient Protocodium sinense and terrestrial plants are believed to share a common ancestor that is approximately 1-1.5 billion years old. However, this “mummy” of primitive bacteria, which shares many characteristics with modern groups, pushes back the historical timeline of the entire plant kingdom.
Moreover, it is described as a “living fossil” by Dr. Aria: “It can be said that it has essentially remained unchanged for at least 540 million years. During the Ediacaran period, evolution directed it towards a stable adaptive region, where it thrived and was quite successful. Today, Codium still capitalizes on that advantage in global competition with other algae species.”
The study has just been published in the scientific journal BMC Biology.
