Fossils reveal many complex animals existed before the Cambrian explosion
New fossils from the Ediacaran Period show that some animal groups are older than we thought
Ediacaran animals live near the seafloor over 539 million years ago in what is now Yunnan, China, in this illustration. The ecosystem includes “bugle worms” the tall, cylindrical blue-green animals with a disc-shaped anchor, possible early relatives of corals, the purple animals shaped like a cocktail glass, and relatives of modern vertebrates and sea stars, the purple sausage-shaped creature on a stalk.
Xiaodong Wang