Physics indicates some of Earth’s earliest animals helped each other feed

By John Timmer

An enigmatic, cup-shaped animal probably grew in groups to make feeding easier.

The result of a fluid mechanics simulation with multiple Erniettas.

Go back to Earth's earliest animals in the Ediacaran, however, and things get much, much harder. There's only one species known so far that appears to have the right body plan to act as a predator of sorts. Beyond that, it's all a collection of soft-looking fronds and segments that are difficult to ascribe any obvious function to. Faced with a lot of questions without obvious answers, biologists turned to an unlikely source of help: physicists and engineers who understand fluid mechanics.

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