Precambrian Fossil: Lydonia jiggamintia, a Punk Rocker Ancestor?

Scientists reclassify Blackbrookia fossils as Lydonia jiggamintia, a possible early Precambrian animal resembling a sponge. Named after a punk rocker, it offers insights into early life and filter feeding.

Precambrian animal fossils are really unusual, especially ones that may be linked to types still out there, claims McKean, currently at the University of Essex in England. Any brand-new exploration, he notes, is significant in assisting our understanding of early life.

Blackbrookia Fossils Discovery

Paleontologist Christopher McKean and colleagues evaluated 39 Blackbrookia fossils located off the shore of Newfoundland, some actually near an area called Mistaken Point. The location is home to several of the world’s oldest pet fossils, including a 570-million-year-old jellyfish found in 2024, along with lots of pseudofossils, broken down raw material that can look like fossils. The assessed examples were located in a location that dates from regarding 560 million years earlier, says McKean, who belonged to the research group while at Memorial University of Newfoundland in St. John’s, Canada.

Paleontologist Christopher McKean and coworkers evaluated 39 Blackbrookia fossils located off the shore of Newfoundland, some actually near an area called Mistaken Point. The area is home to some of the globe’s oldest pet fossils, including a 570-million-year-old jellyfish uncovered in 2024, as well as numerous pseudofossils, broken down natural issue that can look like fossils. L. jiggamintia looked like a punk rocker having a great hair day. The pet’s fingerlike tubes forecasted vertically into the water over pores on its topside, which indicate it was filter feeder, the team states.

Lydonia jiggamintia: A Precambrian Animal?

A closeup of the freshly dubbed L. jiggamintia reveals pores, one sign this fossil is the remains of a pet, not just decomposed organic matter.G. Pasinetti et al/Palaeontologia Electronica 2025

When believed to be a pseudofossil called Blackbrookia, the newly named Lydonia jiggamintia was. It might instead be an uncommon Precambrian pet, which would certainly make L. jiggamintia one of the earliest animals in the fossil document, researchers report September 16 in Palaeontologia Electronica.

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Spongelike Structure and Filter Feeding

Being a punk rocker means being perpetually misconstrued. Possibly it’s vindication that some seafloor fossils, as soon as taken into consideration simply heaps of decomposing gunk, may currently be reclassified as animals– and fittingly called after punk rocker John Lydon, aka Johnny Rotten, of the Sex Pistols.

L. jiggamintia looks comparable to a sponge in structure and form and is a feasible ancestor of some contemporary sponges, McKean states. As a matter of fact, it was the spongelike pores that tipped off scientists it was an animal and not the old remains of arbitrary cruds.

Origin of Name and Inspiration

This illustration reveals what among Planet’s earliest animals– a newly identified spongelike animal named after a punk rocker because of its spiky look– might have appeared like. It’s revealed right here settled on top of another microorganism.

Besides the punk rocker hair inspiration, the name jiggamintia is a nod to a spiky wild fruit called jiggamint by the Beothuk individuals who cleared up in the Newfoundland area countless years prior to European settlers showed up and are now culturally vanished. (The fruit is now called a gooseberry).

L. jiggamintia looked like a punk rocker having a great hair day. The pet’s fingerlike tubes predicted vertically into the water over pores on its topside, which show it was filter feeder, the team states.