Jay Novella

As their path suddenly changes course to head towards food, shelter, or whatever it might be, it's also more common for these tracks to cross themselves as the animal keeps heading to and from these resources.

These organisms could have perhaps, they estimate, been able to sense up to 10 centimeters around themselves

Not just, what was it before, six million years earlier was like a one centimeter.

Now, six million years later, some of these can sense up to 10 centimeters.

The scientists theorize, you know, one possible cause here, they're just riffing, you know, they're not saying this is what happened, but one possible explanation for this could be primitive light detection, the beginnings of real vision, possibly.

But of course, these trails can't prove that they had eyes.

It just shows that their behavior is consistent with longer range perception, which is really as far as they really can take that.

So by the time the Cambrian explosion was well underway, the trails seemed to...

to show an awareness of 15 centimeters.

So they've gone from one centimeter to 10, and then well into the Cambrian explosion, they can sense 15 centimeters away.

And it doesn't sound like a huge distance, but these are tiny creatures.

15 centimeters could be 12 of their body width, so it could be very significant for them.

Of course, the animals wouldn't abruptly change their course only for resources, right?

So that's definitely one limitation of this study because they're thinking mainly for resources, but they recognize that they could also be following boundaries, right?

These tracks could be responding to not a microbial mat for food, but it could be responding to currents or maybe it's avoiding danger.

So all of these other possibilities could be related to their sensory acuity, right?

But in the future, they hope that they'll be able to research and delve into these more types of details to see how it relates.

So, yeah, interesting study.

Check it out online if you want to see some more details.

But this was a fun topic.