Scientists Learn How a 500-Million-Year-Old Fossil Shaped Like a Taco Ate
An ancient shrimplike creature is helping scientists understand how mandibles became so common among animals.
Tag: cambrian
The oldest animal life on Earth was discovered in Canada: 890 million years old
That's a lot of "million years ago".
Newly-discovered fossil worm shows early animals were more complex than we thought
The worm grew to less than 3 centimeters (1 inch) at its widest, but up to 27 centimeters (nearly a ...
The world’s first animals also caused the first global warming event — but it took 100 million years
There's a metaphor here, and an important lesson for ourselves.
Nope, octopuses probably didn’t come from outer space
It's an interesting idea, but it's probably not true. Calm down.
Half billion-year-old nervous system is most detailed fossil of its kind ever
Unearthed in southern China, this ancient fossil bears the most detailed and well preserved nervous system ever found.
Paleontologists find a ridiculously armored Cambrian worm
It basically looks like a weapon: the fossil of a worm-like animal from the Cambrian period has been presented by ...
Scientists find evidence of complex reproduction before the Cambrian
Before the Cambrian, more than 541 million years ago, intriguing creatures named rangeomorphs that grew up to 2 meters dwelt ...
Hallucigenia: the half-billion years old freaky ancestor of molting animals
When the freakish Hallucigenia was first discovered in the 1970s, paleontologists found it nearly impossible to distinguish heads from tail. ...
Animals built reefs 550 million years ago
These reefs were built by Cloudina ~548 million years ago, from the Nama Group, Namibia. Credit: Fred Bowyer Corals have ...
Prehistoric shrimps traded claws for nets, filtering food like modern whales
Cambrian fossil is earliest example of large swimming filter-feeder. An evolutionary explosion Half a billion years ago, the world was ...
The first animal to curl into a ball
This defensive strategy has been used for a very long time, but if you were to take a guess, how ...
Actor Johnny Depp gets 505 million years old fossil named after him
Usually, species are named after defining trait, or sometimes, more rarely, after somebody famous in the field, but every once ...
Stunning 500 million year fossil unearthed [GeoPicture of the week]
Just one of the many reasons why I love geology - paleontologists have unearthed extraordinarily preserved fossils of a 520-million-year-old ...
A book on the Cambrian – with some mind blowing illustrations
Opabinia is an extinct stem-arthropod genus, measuring approximately 4cm head to tail. It had five eyes and a single appendage ...
Controversial study challenges tree of life and claims complex life first originated on land
Professor Gregory Retallack of University of Oregon has launched a highly controversial claim that stirred the scientific community recently, implying that ...
![Fossilized burrows thought to be left by Paleodictyon nodosum [souce: scitechdaily.com]](https://cdn.zmescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/paleodictyon-fossil.webp)
A primitive form of parenting possibly found in 540 million years old paleodictyon patterns
Paleodictyon is a mysterious fossil pattern found mainly in marine sediments thought to be specific of a certain paleo-depth range; it ...
Earliest animal with a skeleton discovered, pre-Cambrian
The Cambrian era marked a profound change on life on Earth, sparking the rapid development of complex organisms and a ...
Fossil of Cambrian sea predator discovered – with video
Anomalocaridids were extremely weird animals, by today's standards; but by the standards of the Cambrian, they were the hot guys. ...
