Billion-year-old fossils unearthed by Yorkshire scientists

The team discovered fossils that illuminate a “key moment in the history of evolution” while exploring rocks around Loch Torridon. The fossils are said to illustrate a time when life made the leap from simple bacterial cells towards more complex cells which would make photosynthesis and sexual reproduction possible.

Around 500 million years after the emergence of these complex cells, the surface of the land was starting to become covered in simple vegetation, and the first animals were able to leave the sea.

These pioneers were followed by the first fish and ferns, reptiles and conifers, mammals and flowering plants – and, eventually, human beings.

Dr Charles Wellman, reader in palaeobiology at Sheffield University, said: “We have discovered evidence for complex life on land from one billion-year-old deposits from Scotland. This suggests that life on land at this time was more abundant and complex than anticipated.

“It also opens the intriguing possibility that some of the major events in the early history of life may have taken place on land and not entirely within the marine realm.”