Ecoworldly [reports](http://ecoworldly.com/2009/02/08/635-million-year-old-animal-traces-discovered/) that life on the Planet has been here for a very long time, some 650 million years, although in forms unlike those existing today. Life on Earth may and probably will continue for just as long, but probably not dominated by our species as it is today. It seems we may be hurrying the process these days.
> New research in the South Oman Salt Basin shows evidence of animal life dating back much further than the first appearance of other significant life forms.
>
> Chemical traces of the minute marine sponges, called demosponges were observed by a research team led by the University of California, Riverside geochemist Dr. Gordon D. Love. Desmosponges include the species most consumsers are familiar with: the bath sponge. These over 500 million-year-old sponges however, were probably much smaller due to a lack of oxygen available during their geological period. The fact that they existed 200 million years before plants appeared on land, shows just how very old they are.
>
> One of the researchers, MIT biologist Roger Summons remarked, “There is a great wealth of evidence these sponges were the first multi-cellular organisms to exist.”
Photo credit to: [Rochester Academy of Science](http://www.rasny.org/geostory/fossils.htm), 1968, Getting Aquainted (sic) with the Geological Story of the Rochester and Genesee Valley Areas.”