The hush-hush identity of a funny radical offossilshas been revealed after palaeontologist sifted through almost 500 papers and get to watch a mankind - first microscope observation on YouTube . The fossils look a mo like a fingermark that ’s sloughed off , but they are , in fact , the encysted remains of a chemical group of organism that are neither flora nor animate being .

The fossils have been misidentified over the years due to foreign lines or “ costa ” that mark their surface , making them bet a flake like a fingerprint . Unsure of what to do with them , scientist slapped on the labelPseudoschizaea , imagine they were some kind of shell , but new research has point to an substitute explanation .

An external squad earn they could be looking at euglenoids , a group of undivided - celled protists that are neither industrial plant nor animal . Like works , euglenoidsphotosynthesize , but like animals , they also wipe out . They ’re think to day of the month back around a billion years to the start of the eukaryotic branch of the Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree of life , but we have n’t found many of them in the fossil record book .

To test if they were onto something , the team sifted through C of sources on animals resemblingPseudoschizaea , covering specimens that dated back almost 500,000 years in the fossil record . The theory was that the fogy may be encysted euglenoids , which is a magic prank they use to survive harsh conditions by warp down into a petty ball . A skill that could excuse why they ’ve persisted for such a recollective time on Earth .

" Perhaps related to their capabilities to encyst , these organisms have endured and come through every major extinction on the planet , " said Bas van de Schootbrugge , then at the Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main , in astatement . " Unlike the colossus that were done in by volcanoes and asteroids , these petite creatures have weathered it all . "

The only problem was that nobody to date had ever been capable to observe a euglenid encysting in a lab , but then along come microscopy enthusiast Fabian Weston from Sydney , Australia . His footage of water take from a nearby pond in New South Wales posted to YouTube end up capturing the moment theEuglenaballed up and formed cysts with little lines similar to those examine in our mystery fossils .

“ Unwittingly , Fabian provided a fundamental piece of evidence , ” suppose Paul Strother from Boston College . “ He is in all probability the only soul on the satellite to have witnessedEuglenaencyst under a microscope . ”

The determination enabled the team to establish a timeline for euglenoids that goes back 400 million age , piece together with the help of 200 - million - year - old fossils and pond deposit from the Triassic - Jurassic boundary , as well as extant euglenoids exist and encysting today .

“ This opens the doorway for recognizing even older examples , for example from Precambrian phonograph record that go back to the very root of the eucaryotic tree of life , ” resolve Strother .

“ Now that we know which organism produce those cysts , we can also apply them for paleo - environmental rendering . Their copiousness around two of the largestmass - extinction eventsof the retiring 600 million years is a narrate - tale sign of the zodiac of some major upheavals on the continents related to increased precipitation under uttermost greenhouse climate condition . ”

The study is published in the journalReview of Palaeobotany and Palynology .