Seafloor Hexagons as Communication Networks

Trace fossils known as Paleodictyon — regular hexagonal honeycomb patterns preserved in sediments for hundreds of millions of years — are best explained as the entrances to arthropod burrow systems. The builders may have arranged the mesh not just for feeding or farming but as a multi‑directional signal network (acoustic, chemical or hydraulic) for colonywide communication. — If correct, this reframes trace fossils from passive records of movement or feeding into evidence of coordinated signaling in early animal societies, with consequences for how we read behavior from the rock record and how we think about the evolution of communication.