Vienna – An international team of researchers from Unimore (Modena and Reggio Emilia University), Ohio State University and Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna has identified how some of the first animals on Earth have been able to spread and dominate the oceans. The study published on Geologica Acta, titled Stars in the Silurian sky. A case study from the Carnic Alps, Austria, covered fossils of crinoids from 425 million years ago (Silurian period) and managed to explain how these marine organisms, far ancestors of the present lilies of the sea, were able to spread colonizing large Areas of the Planet.(9colonne)