Animal, Vegetable or Mineral? (IMAGE)
Caption
The nature of the acritarchs, spiny fossils found in the Doushantuo formation in southern China, became clear only when scientists understood the chemistry of the waters in which they lived. Even though acritarchs lived in the Edicaran, long after the Great Oxygenation Event, they turned out to be animals that had encysted to escape death by anoxia.
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Shuhai Xiao/PNAS
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