Half-billion-year-old worm showed earliest evidence of body-side preference

Fossils of Spriggina floundersi, a worm that lived roughly 500 million years ago, provide the earliest known evidence of animals favouring one side of their body over the other. The trait is a feature of nervous systems and is the deep evolutionary root of the right- and left-handedness seen in humans today.

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💡 Did You Know Science word of the day: Cenozoic — the era of mammals, 66 million years in Live Science · 4h ago 🔬 Science Fossil reveals brain and ecological diversity in the earliest snakes Nature · 3d ago 🔬 Science 550-million-year-old worm-like creature is earliest known right-handed animal Smithsonian Magazine · 11d ago

More on this topic

💡 Did You Know Science word of the day: Cenozoic — the era of mammals, 66 million years in Live Science · 4h ago 🔬 Science Fossil reveals brain and ecological diversity in the earliest snakes Nature · 3d ago 🔬 Science 550-million-year-old worm-like creature is earliest known right-handed animal Smithsonian Magazine · 11d ago