Experts analyzed 170 trace fossils from millions of years before the Cambrian Period and assert that advanced features may ...

For decades, one puzzle stood out among the many mysteries of early animal evolution: the missing origin story of bryozoans.

How ancient bryozoans may have looked. (Zhifei Zhang) The Cambrian explosion was one of the most dramatic chapters in the history of evolution. Around 540 million years ago, a sudden, astonishing ...

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 ...

Fossils of Spriggina floundersi provide the earliest evidence of animals favouring one side of the body over the other – a ...

Scientists have uncovered the earliest fossil evidence of annelids (ringed worms) in Cambrian microfossils dating back approximately 535 million years ago. This discovery offers fresh insights into ...

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 ...

A research team at Yunnan University has resolved a longstanding mystery regarding Earth’s earliest vertebrates, revealing ...

Exceptionally preserved fossils from China reveal that bryozoans were already thriving during the Cambrian explosion.