creature

The findings also cast the humble single-cell creatures in a new, more tantalizing light: They are not merely molecular machines packed in microscopic bodies, but they are also agents that can learn.

Researchers used cutting-edge DNA analysis to examine these shellfish in two key locations along Colombia's Pacific coast, providing the first detailed genetic profile of these important creatures.

The new nematode fossils predate those Cambrian creatures by about 15 million years, says Hughes, a graduate student at Harvard University.

However, other creatures have much stronger regenerative abilities.

“The moment you put yourself in a first-class hotel, you become walled off from life, in a world devoted to creature comforts,” Mr. Frommer told The Los Angeles Times in 2009.