Extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence- and this is a wild and outlandish sounding claim. It is fortunate that I have enough solid evidence to allow others to verify this for themselves. You can personally see the evidence and decide for yourself. I have no doubts that this will soon be verified by other sources and that the results are conclusive- life did indeed exist on Mars, and the spherules that have been found by Opportunity (and now by Spirit as well) are fossils of a small aquatic crustacean similar to a trilobite or a primitive shrimp. Others are relatives of the sea urchin or sand dollar.


What I Am Claiming

Simply put, the "spherules" that have been found on Mars are clearly fossils of a primitive urchin-like echinoderm.

In detail, that these spherules are the remains of aquatic organisms, and that some are dimorphic- having two distinct sexes, and differing forms that clearly show relationships to urchins, crabs, tadpole shrimp, and other similar organisms. They resemble organisms like cladocera, a simple crustacean with a split shell. Some of the spheres in the panoramic images are clearly fractured in half, and that is one reason why I think that cladocera might be the proper classification.

Further note- many of the spherules are similar to sea urchins, and are echinoderms These have a number of different forms as well. An excellent paper on them is here. Urchins can reproduce by fissioning, and some images clearly reveal "double" spherules. One cracked spherule shows faint internal features that appear to resemble the internal anatomy of an urchin, down to its five-fold symmetry. Here is an image. The groove and shape lead me to think that they are closely related in structure to loveniidae or echinocardium