Darwinian evolution would predict that the earliest animals were small and at least relatively simple creatures.
However, the fossil record doesn’t always lend support to this view.
Evolutionists tend to believe that the Ediacaran-era sea creature Dickinsonia was the earliest animal.
A new paper on Dickinsonia fossils published in the journal PLOS ONE suggests that it nevertheless “developed in a complex, highly regulated way using a similar genetic toolkit to today's animals” despite the assumption that it lived “550 million years” ago.
University of California - Riverside. 2017. Shedding light on Earth's first animals: Complex and highly regulated development of Dickinsonia, one of the oldest fossil animals, broadens our understanding of early evolution. Science Daily (17 May).