'Earliest known animal predator' has been named after Sir David Attenborough

A fossil of 550 million-year-old fossil, identified by scientists as 'earliest known animal predator' has been named after British naturalist and TV presenter Sir David Attenborough. The fossil was found in Charnwood Forest, near Leicester in northern England. The specimen has been named Auroralumina attenboroughii. The first part of the name is Latin for 'dawn lantern'. The fossil is from a trove found in 2007.

Phil Wilby from the British Geological Survey had visited Charnwoord forest in 2007 along with a group of palaeontologists. They were examining a site containing more than 1000 forests. To capture impression of the specimen of Auroralumina attenboroughii, the scientists took rubber mould of the rock surface.

They have determined the age of the fossil using radioactive minerals from the surrounding rock. The fossil belongs to the Ediacaran period

Add WION as a Preferred Source

The animal is related to the cnidaria group, which includes sea anemones, jellyfish and corals, Wilby said, pushing the known existence of that group back by 20 million years.

"For the first time we're able to say at 560 million years ago there was a group of animals that looks just like modern animals that had skeletons, that were predators and that were colonial - there were lots of them living together," Wilby told BBC News on Monday (July 25).

"We know that the animal had a stalk and a cup and on top of that, or within that cup, was a polyp very much like a sea anemone with lots of little tentacles that were used to catch food."