A fossil of the first known animal predator has been named after Sir David Attenborough after the geologists who discovered it.
The 560-million-year-old creature is the first of its kind to be identified and is believed to be the oldest known creature with a skeleton.
It was found in Charnwood Forest, near Leicester, where the rugged rocks date back 600 million years to the Precambrian period, the early part of Earth’s history when life was still in its infancy.
The paleontologists who discovered the fossil are naming it Auroralumina attenboroughii after 96-year-old broadcaster and natural historian Sir David.
Its name is Latin for “lantern of dawn” in reference to its age and resemblance to a burning torch, according to a report in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution.
Sir David was first knighted by the Queen in 1985, but received another knighthood last month when he was made a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George, a higher honour.
Researchers say its namesake is a relative of the group of animals that includes modern corals, jellyfish and anemones.
Learn more about David Attenborough
Sir David said: “When I was at school in Leicester I was a keen fossil hunter.
“The rocks in which auroralumina has now been discovered were then considered so old that they predated life on the planet. So I never looked for fossils there.
“A few years later a guy at my school found one and proved the experts wrong.
“He was rewarded with his name upon his discovery. Now I have almost caught up with him, and I am truly delighted.”
Image: Sir David Attenborough said he was an ‘ardent fossil hunter’ at school Image: Image: Harris, Kendall, British Geological Survey
One of the scientists who made the find, Dr Phil Wilby, head of palaeontology at the British Geological Survey, said: “It is generally thought that modern animal groups such as jellyfish appeared 540 million years ago in Cambrian explosion.
“But this predator predates that by 20 million years. It’s the oldest creature we know that has a skeleton.
“So far we’ve only found one, but it’s very exciting to know that there are others that hold the key to when complex life began on Earth.”
In 2007, Dr Wilby and others spent more than a week cleaning a 100 square meter rock surface using toothbrushes and pressure jets.
They made a rubber mold of the entire surface, finding more than 1,000 fossils – and one in particular stood out.
Dr Frankie Dunn, from Oxford University’s Natural History Museum, said: ‘This is very different to other fossils in Charnwood Forest and around the world.
“Most other fossils from this era have extinct body plans, and it’s not clear how they relate to living animals.
“This one clearly has a skeleton, with densely packed tentacles that would have undulated in the water catching passing food, as corals and sea anemones do today.
“It’s nothing like anything else we’ve found in the fossil record at that time,” Dr Dunn added.