OREANDA-NEWS A sensational discovery was made in the Kemerovo region. Scientists have discovered fossils of a creature that lived 358 million years ago, long before the dinosaurs. This baby looked like a miniature eel, but in fact it is an extinct animal from the group of conodonts. Its length is only 1.7 millimeters, the size of an eyelash, but for paleontologists it is a real find of the century, the press service of INGG SB RAS reports.

The discovery was made on the banks of the Yai River, near Anzhero-Sudzhensk. As told at the Institute of Petroleum Geology and Geophysics SB RAS. The new species was named Polygnathus ovaliformis Izokh in honor of Nadezhda Izokh, the scientist who described this tiny antiquity.

The main value of the find is in age. Conodonts lived in an era when trees and quadrupeds were just beginning to appear on Earth. And their remains help scientists "read" the geological layers, namely, to determine the age of ancient rocks and restore the picture of life on the planet millions of years ago.

Earlier, archaeologists found a mysterious sarcophagus in the Amur region. Meanwhile, a sword found in the Sargat culture burial ground was restored in the Omsk region.