A 560-million-year-old fossil was found near the city of Leicester in Great Britain, which researchers believe to be the first predatory animal.
This is reported by Bloomberg.
The animal was named after the British naturalist and TV presenter David Attenborough.
According to scientists, the specimen, called Auroralumina attenboroughii, is the oldest creature to have a skeleton. The animal belongs to the group of corals, jellyfish, and anemones.
"It’s generally held that modern animal groups like jellyfish appeared 540 million years ago in the Cambrian explosion. But this predator predates that by 20 million years,” said Phil Wilby, a paleontologist from the British Geological Survey.
Frankie Dunn of Oxford Universityʼs Natural History Museum said the specimen was very different from other fossils found in Charnwood Forest and around the world.
He added that unlike most other fossils from the Cambrian period, "this one clearly has a skeleton with closely spaced matsacs that oscillated in the water, grabbing food, similar to modern corals and sea anemones."