Show W WEE E E CHAP C H A P CAN BRAG OF FAMILY folks here half billion years washington all you who boast of ancestors pause and take heed of the Perl uis family tree may go back years the hlay mayflower flover william the conqueror adam and eve just fleeting incidents modern upstarts up starts to the his clan may have known the time when it was the only living creature on dry land evidence has been discovered by the smithsonian institution that the a small worm with many legs has lived on earth at least half a billion years practically without change fossilized remains of a creature preserved in rocks believed lieveld years old have been found to have been so much like the modern that it seems probable it must be an ances tor of his if so it means the clan is one of the earths very first families dines on flies files the modern la is de scribed ascribed as the worlds champion ile de dines on flies files that he brings down by spitting slime at them from reservoirs in his body powerful row PoN erful jaws pushed out of his mouth then tear the fly to pieces evolution apparently have much effect on the the old ways were good enough tor for him the modern slinking in the dark under bark of trees and stones looks enough like his big reputed ancestor to be his twin the main difference is that the older insect lived in the lie sea the fossil believed to be the very distant great grandfather of the of today was found in rocks in the cambrian age the 01 old d est geological period in which life Is known to have existed on earth pe may have been the first bold pioneer in the process of evolution says the smithsonian announcement no perhaps the first to climb out of the lie primeval oceans and try iry living on land for a cl change iange all life most scientists agree ol 01 originated in the sen sea while it Is not positive that the half balf billion year old fossil Is a says dr charles E resser of tile the smithsonian it has been identified as a member of the same class of the family of arthropods anthro pods a peculiar type of insects to which the belongs by dr G E hutchinson HutchIn soD of yale the fossil was nas found in british columbia several years ago by dr charles D walcott former secretary of the smithsonian Smiths onlan institution recent studies have bare revealed its ap parent rela relationship to the of today which crawls in the dark places of africa australia Aus south america and the east and west in dies |