A supposed fossil organism from the Eozoic era that was once thought to be evidence of the earliest life on Earth, but is now considered a geological artifact rather than a true fossil.
From Greek 'eos' (dawn) plus 'zoon' (animal), literally meaning 'dawn animal'; the term reflects 19th-century paleontologists' hopes of finding Earth's oldest fossils.
Eozoon is a fascinating cautionary tale in science—for decades in the 1800s, scientists believed they'd found the oldest life on Earth, but it turned out to be just an interesting rock pattern, not a real organism.
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