Oldest animal predator

The oldest-known animal predator is a newly described (2022) fossil species of cnidarian named Auroralumina attenboroughii. It dates back 560 million years, to the Ediacaran Period of the Precambrian, and is approximately 20 million years older than the next oldest-known animal predators (ancient jellyfishes). It is currently represented by just a single 20-cm-tall (8-in) specimen discovered in 2007 on a slab of quarry siltstone within the Bradgate Formation at Charnwood Forest, Leicestershire, UK. This specimen consists of two bifurcating polyps enclosed in a rigid, polyhedral, organic skeleton (thus also making it the oldest-known animal with a skeleton), with evidence of simple tentacles. The new species was first described in Nature Ecology & Evolution on 25 July 2022.

Phylogenetic analyses have revealed A. attenboroughii to be a stem-group medusozoan (i.e. it began as an anchored asexual polyp but later in its life cycle became a free-floating sexual jellyfish-like medusa). Cnidarians include jellyfishes, sea anemones, corals, siphonophores, and hydras, and their tentacles normally contain diagnostic cells housing specialised organelles called nematocysts or cnidocysts, which are used to stun, capture, or kill prey.

Its official scientific name, Auroralumina attenboroughii, translates as Attenborough's dawn lantern. The research team who formally described and named this species thought that it looked like the Olympic torch, with its tentacles resembling the flames of the torch, and the dawn aspect of its name refers to its dating back to the very dawn of life on Earth. The remainder of its name commemorates veteran English naturalist and wildlife film-maker Sir David Attenborough, who was a fervent fossil collector during his childhood in Leicestershire, and in later years has raised public and scientific awareness of Charnwood Forest's highly significant Ediacaran fossils.