Brooksella moldings, as they are known, continue to struggle with a severe identity crisis.
The remains of a 500 million-year-old unidentified star-like 'thing' were thought to be those of ancient
, whose ancestors date back at least 890 million years. However, after its discovery nearly one hundred years ago, it may not be a fossil and, therefore, has never been a living thing, according to a new study.Found in 1896 in the south of the United States, archaeologists named it Brooksella alternata, which later evolved to refer to any relic that resembled Brooksella .
Since they were named Brooksella moldings, these strange things have been going through a severe identity problem. Scientists have contended over the years that they are the remains of glass sponges, bulbous algae, or tunneling worms. On the other hand, some don't think these are "fossils" at all, describing them as gas bubbles.In the latest research, high-resolution 3D imaging and chemical analysis have revealed Brooksella as a "pseudofossil.
While the previously-assumed ancestors lived on Earth throughout the middle Cambrian, no evidence of their production of star-shaped lobes was discovered. Experts' comparison of Brooksella to other concrete silica structures found in different"We did not find any difference between Brooksella and the concretions, other than Brooksella had lobes and the concretions did not," the researchers wrote.
"A sponge usually gets flattened like roadkill during the fossilization process—especially a fossil more than 500 million years old! Also puzzling was the fact that no one inspected Brooksella where it lived and its orientation; if they did, they would find that most lobes were oriented downward, which does not make sense for a sponge to be eating mud," she added.on February 24.
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