Up to now, conventional scientific wisdom held that the planet was populated only by single-celled microbes until the so-called Cambrian explosion, a major surge of biodiversity that began some 600 million years ago. Scientists have unveiled fossils from west Africa that push back the dawn of multicellular life on Earth by at least 1.5 billion years.
Just how complex the newly discovered organisms are is sure to be hotly debated. But there can be no doubt that the creatures unearthed from the hills of Gabon, visible to the naked eye, have upended standard evolutionary timelines.
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