 The consonia is one of the oldest large creatures on earth that became up to 140 centimetres. It is simply a beautiful fossil. It was one of the first discovered idiocrans and they hold the key between a microscopic world of bacteria and the world of large animals. The real nature of these idiocrans is the holy grail of paleontology. For 75 years people have tried to figure out what these creatures actually were and there were huge diversity of opinions. There could lichen, there could have been giant single-celled creatures or there could have been animals in our earliest ancestors and because they tell us something about our own origin it is very important simply to know finally what they were. So Ilya discovered these organically preserved idiocrans and had the totally crazy idea to look for molecules in them to find out what they finally actually are. The problem with getting those fossils that they are located quite high in the cliff of the white sea in the middle of nowhere surrounded by bears and clouds of mosquitoes. So to get them we had to go down from the top of the cliff on the ropes and then try to dig out huge blocks of sandstone until we actually found organically preserved idiocrobial fossils. Looking at molecules in these ancient organisms is a game changer. Paleontologists exclusively look at the structure at the morphology of organisms or fossils. Looking for molecules inside these organisms is entirely new and gives us completely different and complementary information. ANU has one of the most sensitive machines for analyzing biomarkers. We brought samples of the idiocrobial to the ANU. There's a good chance if I've done that anywhere else in the world that just wouldn't work but here we were able to get the signal. Well when Ilya showed me the results I just couldn't believe it. I also immediately saw the significance. It was completely clear. The results are black and white. There's nothing to interpret. These creatures infect police cholesterol which is the hallmark of animals and it tells us this creature in fact was our earliest ancestor.