Ancient Origins: Animals May Have Emerged 200 Million Years Earlier Than Believed
The timeline for the origin of animal life may need significant revision, according to emerging research. Scientists now propose that the first animals may have appeared roughly 800 to 700 million years ago—approximately 200 million years earlier than some previous estimates suggested.
This revised timeline places the emergence of animal life before or during the Snowball Earth period, when our planet was largely covered in ice. The researchers suggest that early animals from this era likely had soft bodies, which rarely fossilized, potentially explaining the sparse physical evidence for such an ancient origin.
The findings challenge long-standing assumptions about when complex multicellular life first appeared on Earth and open new questions about how life might have persisted—or even thrived—under such extreme climatic conditions. Understanding this timeline has implications not only for paleontology but also for astrobiology, as scientists search for signs of life beyond our planet.