The Rangeomorphs have puzzled scientists for years, but these new scans may begin to unlock their mysteries.

They lived before the dawn of true animals , some 580 million year ago , and scientists still are n’t sure whether they were animals , plants , or neither .

These mysterious fauna known as Ediacarans have puzzled investigator for years . Now , however , fresh scans of rare 3D Ediacaran dodo found in Namibia have revealed more about these freaky life contour than ever before .

Researchers at University College London bear out these scans on a specific group of Ediacarans called Rangeomorphs , as detail in a Modern cogitation published in the journalPrecambrian Research . Using computerized tomography applied science , the researcher were able to see inside these specimens like never before and at least begin to translate their inner - working .

“ This is the first look inside such a unequalled specimen of a rangeomorph , ” lead research worker Alana Sharptold the New Scientist . Sharp and ship’s company were able to see the specimen ’ internal social organization , including its cone - forge central luggage compartment and the six fern - like fronds extending out from it to mold a crude kind of skeleton .

Despite such insights , scientist still known relatively little about the Ediacarans . We know that they were soft - bodied , multicellular , mostly immobile organism that could grow to size of it big than humankind , and that they disappear some 540 million twelvemonth ago , but not all that much more .

“ There ’s still so much to discover about what these creatures were and how they lived , and elaborate entropy on their anatomy is very worthful , ” the University of Cambridge ’s Jennifer Hoyal Cuthill told the New Scientist .

“ They may or may not be fauna – we ca n’t say from this study , ” says Sharp . “ But they are the first of the truly large , multicellular being that radiate generally before the first true creature develop . ”

Now , in hopes of unlocking more of the mysteries of the Ediacarans , Sharp and her squad will return to Namibia in hunt of more specimens of these bewildering creatures .

Next , register up on the lifeform that scientists have now see to be thevery first brute ever on Earth .