Aroundf 2.1 billion years ago, there existeed several multicellular organisms, that were likely one of the first forays into multicellularity, they coincided with a brief moment of increased oxygen levels and went extinct after the levels dropped, they do not have any modern-day descendants.

Francevillian biota

Francevillian biota fossils

The Francevillian biota (also known as Gabon macrofossils or Gabonionta) is a group of 2.1-billion-year-old Palaeoproterozoic, macroscopic organisms known from fossils found in Gabon in the Palaeoproterozoic Francevillian B Formation, a black shale province. The fossils are regarded as evidence of the earliest form of multicellular life. The fossils were discovered by an international team led by the Moroccan-French geologist Abderrazak El Albani, of the University of Poitiers, France. While the fossils have yet to be assigned to a formal taxonomic position, they have been informally and collectively referred to as the “Gabonionta” by the Natural History Museum Vienna in 2014.

Morphology

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