Researchers have discovered three fossils of the earliest known living animal — the 550-million-year-old ‘Dickinsonia’ — on the roof of the Bhimbetka Rock Shelters, about 40 km from Bhopal. 

• One can identify the fossils from the white leaf-like patches with a central vertebra (central midrib) and connecting veins.  
• While one fossil is 17 inches long, the other two are much smaller. 

• The new discoveries, published in a journal, Gondwana Research, can be seen right at the beginning of the ‘Auditorium Cave’, the first of such caves at Bhimbetka, a UNESCO heritage site, located about 3.5 metres above the ground. 

Source: The Hindu