Fossil Find Is Oldest Land Animal

Scientists have decided that a fossil found near Stonehaven in Aberdeenshire is the remains of the oldest creature ever to live on land. It is thought that the one-centimetre millipede which was prised out of a siltstone bed is 428-million-years-old.

Experts at the National Museums of Scotland and Yale University have studied the fossil for months.

They say the find is the earliest evidence of a creature living on dry land, rather than in the sea.

The discovery on the foreshore of Cowie Harbour was made by an amateur fossil hunter, Mike Newman.

To recognise his role in the significant find, the new species - Pneumodesmus newmani - has been named after him.

Scotland has the best palaeozoic, pre-triassic, pre-dinosaur, sites in the world

Mike Newman Fossil hunter The Aberdeen bus driver, who lives in Kemnay, told the Sunday Herald newspaper: "I knew that the site had been re-aged, that it was older than originally thought, so I went down there.

"I knew that any terrestrial-type things with legs found there could be early and important.

"I had found millipedes there before, but this one had evidence of the holes that showed it actually breathed.

"I'm interested in particular in fossil fish; I describe the fish in scientific journals, but things like this creature I pass on."

He added: "Scotland has the best palaeozoic - pre-triassic, pre-dinosaur - sites in the world.

"There's more sites in the small country of Scotland than the whole of the US and Russia put together.

"It's a fantastic place for these very old invertebrates. Just think, the first air-breathing creature crawled out of the swamp at Stonehaven."

The fossil is believed to be some 20 million years older than what had previously been thought of as the oldest breathing animal - a peculiar spider-like creature chiselled out of the chert - a kind of rock - at Rhynie, also in Aberdeenshire.

The millipede had spiracles, or primitive breathing structures on the outside of its body, making it the oldest air-breathing creature ever to have existed.

The site near Stonehaven is well known in fossil collecting circles for its arthropods - spidery animals such as sea scorpions.

Thanks,
here is the abstract
http://www.bioone.org/bioone/?request=get-abstract&issn=0022-3360&volume=078&issue=01&page=0169
New millipede specimens from the Paleozoic of Scotland are described, including Archidesmus macnicoli Peach, 1882 , from the Lower Devonian (Lochkovian) Tillywhandland Quarry SSSI and three new taxa?Albadesmus almondi, Pneumodesmus newmani, and Cowiedesmus eroticopodus?from the mid Silurian (late Wenlock?early Ludlow) Cowie Formation at Cowie Harbour. Cowiedesmus eroticopodus new species is placed within the new Cowiedesmidae within the new order Cowiedesmida.

Kampecaris tuberculata Brade-Birks from the Lower Devonian (Siegenian) of the Lanark Basin near Dunure is shown not to be a kampecarid myriapod, redescribed as Palaeodesmus tuberculata and placed order incertae sedis within Archipolypoda. Anthracodesmus macconochiei Peach is also redescribed and tentatively placed order incertae sedis within Archipolypoda.

Archidesmus macnicoli, Albadesmus almondi, and Palaeodesmus tuberculata are each demonstrated to have broad sternites with laterally placed coxal sockets and paramedian pores containing paired valves. These pores are interpreted as having housed eversible vesicles. Some specimens of Archidesmus macnicoli and Cowiedesmus eroticopodus are male and have a pair of modified legs on trunk segment 8, identified as leg pairs 10 and 11, respectively. The presence of modified anterior legs restricted to segment 8 increases the range of variability known in modified appendage location in male millipedes and compounds existing uncertainty about using the presence of gonopods on trunk segment 7 as a synapomorphy of Helminthomorpha. An affinity between Archidesmida and Cowiedesmida is suggested based on possession of modified legs on segment 8 and Archidesmida + Cowiedesmida is placed along with Euphoberiida in Archipolypoda based on possession of free, broad sternites with bivalved paramedian pores and fused pleurotergites. The oldest known evidence of spiracles is demonstrated in Pneumodesmus newmani, proving that the oldest known millipedes were fully terrestrial.

Manuscript Accepted 2 June 2003

LOL great quote.

It's not a quote, he made it up, and it's not true.

Evolution theory and factors that prove or disprove it not relevant? Hmm only when they find something to challenge it...

See above. It seems to be yet another example of someone attempting to discredit evolution via made-up "quotes", an unfortunately common tactic among its opponents.

By the way, (1) How do they know 428 million years old,

By various independently confirming lines of evidence.

and (2) Is there a single rock on the planet (other than meteors possibly) that isn't exactly the same age as all the other rocks?

Yes, there are millions of such examples. Did you have some sort of point?

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