A team of scientists from Australia found out what the food of the first animals that lived on Earth consisted of, reports Xinhua.

The Ediacara biota, a group of large, soft-bodied organisms that lived about 600 to 540 million years ago, fed on bacteria and algae on the ocean floor, researchers at the Australian National University show in a study published Wednesday. By analyzing the fossils, which contained the molecular remains of the last meal of these creatures, the researchers confirmed that the organism known as Kimberella had a mouth and digested food in the same way as modern animals.

Another species, Dickinsonia, which reached 1.4 meters in length, absorbed food through its body as it moved along the ocean floor.

The two organisms lived about 20 million years before the “Cambrian explosion,” a major event that diversified life forms on Earth and changed the course of evolution that led to modern living things.

“Our findings suggest that the animals of the Ediacaran biota that lived on Earth before the Cambrian explosion that led to modern living things were a mixture of oddballs like Dickinsonia and more advanced animals like Kimberella that already had several physiological traits , similar to modern humans and animals,” said researcher Ilya Bobrovsky, the lead author of the study.

“The Ediacara biota are truly the oldest fossils large enough to be seen with the naked eye and represent the origin of us and all animals that exist today. These creatures represent our deepest visible roots,” he added.

Kimberella and Dickinsonia fossils were taken by Bobrovsky from rocks near the White Sea in Russia in 2018. (Source: Agerpres)