Ancient steroids establish the Ediacaran fossil Dickinsonia as one of the 
earliest animals

Bobrovskiy, Ilya; Hope, Janet M.; Ivantsov, Andrey; Nettersheim, Benjamin J.; Hallmann, Christian; Brocks, Jochen J.

doi:10.1126/science.aat7228

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Ancient steroids establish the Ediacaran fossil Dickinsonia as one of the earliest animals

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Nettersheim, Benjamin J.
Research Group Organic Paleo-Biogeochemistry, Dr. C. Hallmann, Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Max Planck Society;

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Hallmann, Christian
Research Group Organic Paleo-Biogeochemistry, Dr. C. Hallmann, Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Max Planck Society;

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Citation

Bobrovskiy, I., Hope, J. M., Ivantsov, A., Nettersheim, B. J., Hallmann, C., & Brocks, J. J. (2018). Ancient steroids establish the Ediacaran fossil Dickinsonia as one of the earliest animals. Science, 361(6408), 1246-1249. doi:10.1126/science.aat7228.

Cite as: https://hdl.handle.net/21.11116/0000-0002-44D5-1

Abstract

The enigmatic Ediacara biota (571 million to 541 million years ago) represents the first
macroscopic complex organisms in the geological record and may hold the key to our
understanding of the origin of animals. Ediacaran macrofossils are as “strange as life on
another planet” and have evaded taxonomic classification, with interpretations ranging from
marine animals or giant single-celled protists to terrestrial lichens. Here, we show that lipid
biomarkers extracted from organically preserved Ediacaran macrofossils unambiguously
clarify their phylogeny. Dickinsonia and its relatives solely produced cholesteroids, a
hallmark of animals. Our results make these iconic members of the Ediacara biota the oldest
confirmed macroscopic animals in the rock record, indicating that the appearance of the
Ediacara biota was indeed a prelude to the Cambrian explosion of animal life.