The first animal was a quilted oval that changed everything.

Dickinsonia is one of the most enigmatic fossils ever discovered. Dating from the Ediacaran period, 558 million years ago, it represents the dawn of complex multicellular life. The organism was a soft-bodied creature, typically oval-shaped with a quilted appearance, ranging from a few millimeters to over a meter in length. What makes Dickinsonia so fascinating is that it doesn't fit into any modern animal phylum. Its body plan was completely unique—a quilted structure that may have absorbed nutrients directly through its surface. Recent chemical analysis has revealed cholesterol molecules in Dickinsonia fossils, confirming it was indeed an animal, not a plant or fungus. This discovery pushes back the origin of animals by at least 20 million years. The Ediacaran period was a time of radical experimentation in body plans, and Dickinsonia represents one of the most successful of these early experiments. Its quilted design may have been an adaptation to the low-oxygen environment of the time, maximizing surface area for nutrient absorption. Today, nothing like Dickinsonia exists—it represents a completely extinct branch of the tree of life, a reminder that evolution is not just about progress, but about endless experimentation and adaptation.