Kimberella, the first grazer
A mollusc-like animal crawls across microbial mats and leaves the scrape marks to prove it.
- When
- Known to
- ± 3 million years
- Era
- Neoproterozoic, Proterozoic
Kimberella, around 555 million years old, has a bilaterally symmetrical body, evidence of a muscular foot, and is found alongside fan-shaped scratch marks made as it rasped food from the seafloor. Together these make it the oldest widely accepted bilaterian — the group containing nearly all living animals. It demonstrates directed movement and active feeding tens of millions of years before the Cambrian.