Scientists have discovered the oldest fossilized evidence of sexual reproduction and locomotion in animals at a remote site in Canada’s Northwest Territories that dates back 567 million years to the Ediacaran period, according to a study published on Wednesday in Science Advances. According to researchers, the finding pushes the origins of animal sex back by 5-10 million years.
The newly unearthed fossils were deposited in a fossil layer known as the White Sea assemblage that is preserved in parts of Russia, Asia, and Australia, but has never been found in North America before.
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