dramatically. It was the time of the Cambrian Explosion, an eruption of life when Earth’s very first animals began appearing in the fossil record — the ancestors of all major animal groups ...

For over half a billion years, evolution has sculpted the nervous systems of bilaterian animals, equipping them with remarkable capabilities to process information, coordinate movements, and respond ...

The Cambrian Explosion saw an incredible diversity of life emerge, including many major animal groups alive today. Among them were the chordates, to which vertebrates (animals with backbones ...

It has long been suspected that the sparseness of the pre-Cambrian fossil record reflects these two problems. First, organisms may not have sequestered and secreted much in the way of fossilizable ...

Researchers think there are now around 7.7 million animal species living on Earth, with thousands more discovered every year.

Worminess wasn’t the only factor that brought oblivion to the Ediacarans and triggered the Cambrian explosion—there also were changes in ocean chemistry that allowed animals to acquire hard ...

Another important study focused on the Ediacaran-Cambrian transition, which is pivotal for understanding the radiation of early animals. Researchers created new age models based on carbon isotope ...

Some animals could likely tell the difference between light and dark, but they never knew whether that looming shadow was a friend or foe. Then, at the beginning of the Cambrian Period, life opened ...

Dr María Herranz noted, "The emergence of paired nerve cords likely facilitated greater coordination of movement, particularly in segmented animals. During the Precambrian-Cambrian transition ...

This significant assemblage of the early Cambrian organisms, known as the Chengjiang biota, was discovered in 1984 by Xianguang Hou, who led a team at Yunnan Key Laboratory for Palaeobiology (YKLP).

Dr. María Herranz noted, "The emergence of paired nerve cords likely facilitated greater coordination of movement, particularly in segmented animals. During the Precambrian-Cambrian transition ...