How ancient bryozoans may have looked. (Zhifei Zhang) The Cambrian explosion was one of the most dramatic chapters in the ...

Fossils from 520-million-year-old rocks in China provide the first clear evidence that bryozoans were part of the Cambrian ...

A newly discovered trove of fossils in southwestern China is shifting the timeline of when complex animals evolved. The diversity and complexity of animal life is thought to have increased rapidly ...

Entire groups of organisms – and possibly even ecosystems – may still await discovery within museum drawers or poorly studied ...

Animal life is extraordinarily diverse and complex, having colonised almost all environments on Earth – from hostile hydrothermal vents in the deep sea to the skies across our continents. But all this ...

Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story: Scientists believe they’ve deduced why prehistoric Ediacara Biota fossils have remained preserved for millions of years. The fossils of these ...

For decades, scientists have wondered what triggered the sudden "explosion" of complex animal life on Earth. This new hypothesis suggests that the answer isn't found in shells or legs, but in the ...

More than 540 million years ago, in the seafloor of the Ediacaran, something changed forever. Animals began to see. Or rather ...

Scientists suggest Earth's earliest animals reproduced asexually, slowing evolution and delaying the biodiversity boom that ...

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