'Oldest Animal' Fossil Found At Bhimbetka Is Actually A Beehive, Claim Indian Scientists

In the year 2021, the discovery of a rare 550-million-year-old fossil of Indian Dickinsonia, a primitive marine animal, was reported from the Bhimbetka rock shelters near Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh.

Now the Indian scientists have proved that the fossil, which received widespread attention, including coverage from international media, was actually a left-over impression of a fallen beehive and not a genuine fossil.

In a statement, the Department of Science and Technology said: The Vindhyan Supergroup, an archive of more than one billion years of the history of the earth, is one of the largest basins in the world and is the site of many discoveries of fossils that explain how the earliest life originated and diversified on the earth.

Reporting of an Ediacaran fossil by a group of American scientists from the area encouraged a group of Ediacaran palaeontologists at the Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeosciences (BSIP) to take a look and further hunt for another similar fossil.

This is because Ediacaran fossils were traced to be the earliest animals that existed on the earth around 550 million years ago and hence evoke much interest among evolutionary biologists and palaeontologists.

The group of experts travelled to the spot of the discovery and scrutinised the fossil Dickinsonia tenuis, an important Ediacaran fossil (the earliest animal), reported from the UNESCO World Heritage Site Bhimbetka Cave Shelter in 2021.

The researchers, who undertook a field study of the place where the fossil was claimed, found that, unlike fossils, which are always preserved on the bedding plane of the rock strata, the sample was not entirely preserved on the bedding plane. Part of it was preserved on the bedding plane, and part of it was preserved on the transversally cut face of the Maihar Sandstone outcrop.

Both fresh and decayed honey beehives were observed on the same bedding plane. A giant active beehive with several Apis dorsata attached to the hive was also found. A honeycomb structure was also observed. This evidence shows that the described fossil was misinterpreted as Dickinsonia.

Further, laser Raman spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction (XRD) confirmed the presence of honey and wax in the material, due to the activity of bees in forming hives. 

Such misunderstandings, according to the experts, are uncommon, but they must be rectified carefully in order to trace the precise course of evolution and properly research Indian geology.