N.L. fossil shows earliest evidence ever of animals with muscles

A fossil that was discovered on Newfoundland could be the oldest complex animal and the earliest evidence of muscular tissue in the world.
The fossil, dating from about 560 million years ago, was discovered in the Port Union area on the Bonavista Peninsula in 2009 by a team of researchers from the University of Cambridge, the University of Oxford, and Memorial University in St. John's.

This artist reconstruction of the organism shows its bundles of fibres in a four-fold symmetrical arrangement, similar to modern Cnidarians like jellyfish and sea anemones. (Submitted by Martin Brasier)

"It's amazing, because it is completely different from everything we'd seen before in the rocks in Newfoundland, both down at Mistaken Point [on the southern Avalon] and up on the Bonavista Peninsula," said Jack Matthews, an Oxford PhD candidate in geology. "Whereas everything else is what we call a frondose organism, this is completely different.  "And we believe we've interpreted that it is a Cnidarian, so, of a similar nature to modern jellyfish, and corals, and sea anemones."-READ MORE