Sea creature, thought to have used tentacles to capture food, is named Auroralumina attenboroughii
A hundred years from now, Sir David Attenborough’s body may have turned to dust, but a fossilised sea creature, thought to represent Earth’s earliest animal predator, will continue to bear his name.
A few years later, in 1957, a fern-like impression was discovered by Roger Mason, a younger boy at Attenborough’s school. The discovery turned out to be one of the oldest fossilised animals, and was named“Now I have – almost – caught up with him and I am truly delighted,” said Attenborough, who has more than 40 species named after him, ranging from a Madagascan dragonfly to a dandelion-like hawkweed found only in the Brecon Beacons in south Wales.
The fossil was dated at the British Geological Survey’s headquarters using tiny radioactive minerals in the surrounding rock, called zircons, that act as geological clocks. “It’s generally held that modern animal groups like jellyfish appeared 540m years ago in the Cambrian explosion. But this predator predates that by 20m years,” said Dr Phil Wilby, palaeontology leader at the British Geological Survey, who helped to discover it.