Dickinsonia lived around 558–541 million years ago, long before dinosaurs or even fish. For decades, scientists argued whether it was an animal, fungus, or something else entirely—until cholesterol molecules were found in its fossils in 2018, confirming it was an animal. It had no mouth, eyes, or organs and likely absorbed nutrients directly from the seafloor.
Some say it's a bunch of micro-organisms (bacteria) creating the animal we know. There wasn't much predators in that time, so the animal became dominant throughout the ancient seabed. Germ mats are close to what Dickinsonia would've looked.
What is germ mat?
Oh, it's microbial mat.
Kind of like a dirty carpet…
No you’re a dirty carpet!!! 😂
Think of biofilm, like pond scum
Dick-in what?
Dick-in-Sonya
There weren't many predators
A big bugger for it's time too.
I often wonder what the fossil record would look like if 99%+ had not been lost.
I suspect some species were beyond our wildest dreams.
It's really mindblowing how fossilization is actually a really rare occurence, and entire clades of living things may probably be lost to oblivion.
Super mindblowing. Fossils also have a bias towards preserving things that lived near bogs and swamps. Whole biomes like desert or tundra probably have very little fossil evidence
And also with heavy bias towards bones. Soft tissue doesn’t preserve well, and only under exceedingly rare conditions, so a lot of these absolute alien creatures of our evolutionary past are probably just gone without a trace, even if we were to dissect the entire earth’s crust for fossils. They’re essentially jelly creatures, their remains wouldn’t survive a week in the rain, let alone millions or even billions of years.
A lot of freaky jellies I bet
i can imagine being able to transform a certain part of the surface back to what it was before, only a few of the creatures in it would be recognizable from fossils.
I would've loved to have seen the giant dragonflies before they swiftly ate my head
Griffinflies were mean motherfuckers .
Moisturize meeee
Sprays you with moisturizer
look how thin I am!
Had my chin COMPLETELY removed!
Doctor Who mentioned 🤣
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dickinsonia
Poor Sonia😔
The sea was horny that day my friend
Technically there were no dicks in existence yet.
Yeah, they were all in Sonia
there are always dicks
I think you mean lucky Sonia
A microbial mat cannot give consent
r/DicksOutForHarambe
Why
What???
This is one of my favorite animals. I learned about it through the YouTube channel Gingko Traces.
Peak
See, this is what i come here for. Not the dinosaurs, but for the truly weird shit that I've never heard of. Thanks for this. Keep it coming!
There is a whole World but hardly any good encyclopaedia type books available.
You had a golden opportunity to use an æ and you blew it!
Sonia at it again
Guess the country where it lived
Uranus?
Oh dear..
Relax satan
I don't need to guess, I know. It's Australia.
And Russia. And Ukraine. And China
The holotype is Australian.
Question was "where it lived" not "where the holotype was found"
I'm aware. We weren't discussing the holotype. We were discussing the genus as a whole
I don't need to guess, I know: 36 yo weeb who is heavily invested in underage cartoon fetish content
Edit: wow I didn't know the user base here supports participation in posts that sexualise underage cartoon children
I don't consider myself a weeb actually. I haven't been into anime in decades.
Yea and my dog doesn't consider himself a dog but he still eats from a bowl and shits outside
What my dog doesn't do is participate in posts sexualising cartoon children
Edit: as if you people support this shit. Disgusting.
No what I mean is I have a variety of interests and I consider Japanese media (besides Pokemon) much lower on the list than say birding, paleontology, or Western animation history.
Your interests typically do not determine your intelligence. Just because someone enjoys 'cringe' content doesn't mean they can't know things.
Can you show the class where I said their interests affected their intelligence?
What I DID do was call out someone who sexualises underage cartoon characters
"Cringe content" according to you.
And what, because I said something incorrect smugly, you're going to do something petty like that? Is that how it is?
Do something petty like what? Point out the fact that you fantasize about underage girls? That's called community service.
Trying to dig up dirt on your opponents instead of attacking their argument is an underhanded debate tactic yes.
I did both, cry about it
Pedophiles have no place in this society.
Holy crap a dude is in his 30s and likes to watch eastern cartoons instead of western? We should put him to the fkn stake!!! 😂😂
Bro literally posts in subs devoted to the fetishization of children's cartoons but go off
Edit: poke"Investor", I should have known 🤣
Did Sonia consent?
Ma, look at me!
I am a plate.
Someone had a crush on Sonia and this was how they decided to tell her.
dick in son ia
Sonia be gettin it
The What is in Who?
“He did what is his cup?”
Basically a living bathmat! 🤣
Such a strange little guy.
FLAT
It'd be a cute pet to have in a fish tank!
No it wouldn't.
Reject modernity. Return to disc.
did it have locomotion?
My dick also has insomnia
and if a giant albino one bit off a ship captain's leg it would be Moby Dickinsonia
Brodavis put his Dickinsonia
Hey baby, have you ever tried Dickinsonia?
Is that Sonia?
Always wondered if this started to diverge, some growing eyes, becoming more complex in shape, with hardened skin.
Looks like a head of hair that was flattened into a pancake
Dickinsideya
When doolies ruled the Earth...
As long as Sonia consents
I fucking love history and science
I have no mouth, and I must scream animal
Cholesterol is a sign of life?
Not what my doctor tells me…
"...It had no mouth, eyes or organs..."
Now. Most important question of them all...
Did Dickinsonia had a d*ck?
is fish really a true group? because they are very diversed even in land there is split of reptile , mammal and kind of amphibian co exists . it feels impossible to water only having fishes
It's the fish's carpet.
Any relation to Bruce from Iron Maiden?