An article published in the journal “Biology Letters” describes a research on an organisms that belongs to the Parvancorina genus that lived over 540 million years ago, concluding that it had a higher mobility than previously thought. A team of researchers created simulations to understand how the water flowed around the body of a Parvcorina to understand its mobility. This research contradicts the common idea that organisms belonging to the so-called Ediacara fauna had a static life.

The Parvancorina genus has so far been formed by two species: Parvancorina minchami, whose fossils were discovered for the first time in Australia, and Parvancorina sagitta, whose fossils were discovered for the first time in Russia. The shield-like shape of these 1 to 2 centimeter long organisms suggested that it was a primitive arthropod for some similarities with trilobites but other features resembled other phyla such as molluscs.

This is a typical problem with fossils belonging to the Ediacara fauna which makes it really difficult to classify them into the tree of life. These organisms lived in an earlier age than that of animals with bones, shells and other hard parts, leaving only a few fossils that might be incomplete. This keeps on causing discussions among paleontologists when attempts are made to classify some of these organisms but in general researchers thought they lived on the bottom of the sea without moving. Perhaps one of the few generally accepted conclusions on Ediacara fauna is wrong.

This new research used a technique called Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), usually used in the field of engineering to analyze fluid dynamics problems using computers. In the case of Parvancorina, the use of this technique is due to the fact that this organism had ridges on its back that formed a kind of small anchor and only a simulation on the computer would have made it possible to see if and how it was able to move in water.

The result of this analysis is that Parvancorina wasn’t passive but could move orienting to take advantage of sea currents. This allowed it to feed like many modern animals that filter water to catch bits of food. It could be the first organisms that used this technique.

This is the result of simulations based on extremely old fossils, so there’s always some margin of approximation. This is a type of research that would have been impossible until a few years ago so there’s still room to improve the adaptation of this type of technique to paleontology. Its application in this study of Parvancorina gave interesting results that will certainly be analyzed and discussed because they give an idea of ​​the organisms of the Ediacaran period different from that generally accepted.