Nature is a weird and wonderful beast, and we still have some way to go before we come close to mapping out each and every species that cohabits this earth we are destroying at a rate of knots.

One thing we are pretty sure of is what was the first animal on earth was, although if you were hoping for something dramatic you are both a dreamer and someone who lacks a basic understanding of evolution. Below from Discovery:

A molecule present in 640-million-year-old rocks comes from a simple sea sponge, according to genetic analysis done by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers. The time frame is well before the Cambrian Explosion 540 million years ago, in which most animals groups sprang up and took hold in a relatively short geologic stretch.

That makes the humble sea sponge a likely bearer of the title “first animal on Earth”…

The MIT researchers decided to look for the elusive first creature by studying molecular fossils –- trace molecules still present in ancient rocks after the animal that left them has long since decayed into nothingness…

The researchers first identified the gene that made the molecule, observing that sea sponges and algae have an extra copy of the gene.

Then, after some evolutionary-tree detective work, they traced the extra-copy genetic behavior back to its oldest evolutionary carrier: the sea sponge. It turned out the sponge had evolved the extra gene copy well before algae, sometime around — you guessed it — 640 million years ago.

Take a bow humble sea sponge, those are some pretty decent bragging rights. You ain’t got nothing on the aye-aye though, the clear winner in the prestigious ‘animal that looks most like it was born in a dumpster’ award.

[source:discovery]