It looks like a giant blob. It's oddly shaped, and covered in ribs. It has no mouth or eyes.

The Dickinsonia fossil, extracted by Ilya Bobrovskiy Credit:Ilya Bobrovskiy/ Australian National University

Since finding the first bizarre fossil trapped in red-orange rocks in South Australia's Flinders Ranges more than 70 years ago, scientists have argued about what these strange creatures could possibly be.

Were they a type of ancient fungus? A giant single-celled organism?

It took a young scientist dangling down a sheer cliff face in the Russian wilderness, fending off mosquitoes and bears, to prove them all wrong — it was an animal.