Sometime before 520 million years ago, animal life began to flourish as never before. The small shells, worms and even sponge-like enigmas of earlier eras suddenly unfolded into a new array of species ...

IMAGE: Caption: Carbonate layers hold carbon isotope evidence of the late Precambrian greening of the Earth. These are located in the Old Dad Mountains in California. Credit: L.P. Knauth, Arizona ...

Paleontologists have discovered remarkable fossils in the Grand Canyon that reveal fresh details about the emergence of complex life half a billion years ago. The newfound remains of fauna from the ...

This was the reality for early animal life in the oceans and seas about half a billion years ago. This was also the time when animal diversity boomed, in what is known as the " Cambrian explosion." My ...

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 ...

Since soon after our planet formed, Earth's 4.6 billion-year-long history was dominated by single-celled life. Something dramatic happened about 500 million years ago called the Cambrian "explosion," ...

This animation created for Evolution: "Great Transformations" depicts creatures whose fossils were found at the Burgess Shale. As alien as these creatures seem, they are also surprisingly familiar.

CHINA — Goblet-shaped sea jelly relatives with miniature "arms." A plump, legless creature resembling a sausage. Long, wormlike animals tipped with flat "holdfast" discs for anchoring to the seafloor.