Half-Billion-Year-Old Fossils of Vertebrates Found in China

Scientists have unearthed two half-billion-year-old fossils of fish-like creatures that could be the earliest known vertebrates. The discovery of the 2 1/2-inch fossils in China, reported in today’s Nature, suggests that vertebrates--animals with primitive spines or backbones--had already undergone considerable evolution by the Cambrian epoch, from about 490 million to 545 million years ago.

Cambridge University scientist Simon Conway Morris said the fish-like fossils are about 530 million years old. Up to now, the oldest unmistakable vertebrate fossil was about 480 million years old. Morris said the latest find means that “the so-called Cambrian explosion was more abrupt and dramatic than we thought.”

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Compiled by Times medical writer Thomas H. Maugh II