Grypania
A coiled ribbon several centimetres long — possibly the oldest large organism ever found.
- When
- Known to
- ± 20 million years
- Era
- Paleoproterozoic, Proterozoic
Grypania spiralis appears as spiral carbon films up to a few centimetres across in rocks around 1.87 billion years old, and has long been cited as the earliest eukaryote large enough to see. The interpretation is contested: it may instead be a giant colonial cyanobacterium. Either way it is among the first organisms visible to the naked eye, and it appears shortly after oxygen levels rose.