A young organism or structure in an early stage of development; a small or newly formed germ.
From germ with the diminutive suffix -ling (indicating something small or young), creating a term for a young or incipient form of life.
Germlings in the fossil record are incredibly rare—the moment an organism dies, it typically decays too quickly to fossilize, which is why we have so few glimpses of life's earliest stages.
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