Don't take this the wrong way, but your oldest ancestor was not exactly a beauty. Scientists said a tiny marine creature from China that wriggled in the seabed mud about 540 million years ago may be the earliest-known animal in the lengthy evolutionary path that eventually led to humans. It was a weird-looking beastie with a bag-like body and, for its size, a really big mouth. University of Cambridge paleontologist Simon Conway Morris noted that humans, who appeared a relatively recent 200,000 years ago, have a series of "evolutionarily deeper ancestors" than monkeys and apes. That point is exemplified by the unique-looking creature called Saccorhytus, whose name means wrinkled sack. "And is not beauty in the eye of the beholder?" Conway Morris asked. Saccorhytus, measuring about four-hundredths of an inch (1 millimeter), appears to be the most primitive member of the broad animal group called deuterostomes. This group includes vertebrates - fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals including people - as well as animals called echinoderms including starfish and sea urchins and obscure creatures called hemichordates including acorn worms. Saccorhytus lived during the...
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