Cholesterol traces suggest these mysterious fossils were animals, not fungi
These alienlike organisms lived more than 541 million years ago
ANIMAL, VEGETABLE, MINERAL? Enigmatic, alienlike fossils, which date to between 570 million and 541 million years ago, included different species of the oval-shaped Dickinsonia (shown).
Ilya Bobrovskiy/ Australian National Univ.
Cholesterol clinched it: A group of strange Precambrian fossils are among the oldest known animals in the rock record.