First air breathing creature crawled out of Scottish swamp, claims fossil hunter Mike Newman, as reported in BBC Online News, 25 Jan 2004. Newman found a fossil millipede in a siltstone bed near Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire dated at 428 million years old. Like living millipedes the fossil millipede had spiracles breathing tubes, making it the oldest air breathing land animal so far found. Newman went looking for fossils at this site because he heard “that the site had been re-aged.”
Editorial Comment: No matter how old this fossil actually is, it is a fully functioning air breathing, land walking creature, clearly recognised as a millipede, and is no help to the theory that water breathing aquatic creatures somehow evolved air breathing structures and crawled out of the sea. The fact the fossil site has been “re-aged” is also a good reminder that evolutionary rock ages are not as rock solid as popular science books proclaim. If you’re brave enough to think ouside the evolutionary square, consider this the rocks have not changed. They are exactly the same age as they were before scientists “re-aged” them. (Ref. millipede, air-beathing, fossil)