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The Cambrian explosion (also known as Cambrian radiation [1] or Cambrian diversification) is an interval of time beginning approximately in the Cambrian period of the early Paleozoic, when a sudden radiation of complex life occurred and practically all major animal phyla started appearing in the fossil record.
Wiwaxia is a genus of soft-bodied animals that were covered in carbonaceous scales and spines that protected it from predators. Wiwaxia fossils—mainly isolated scales, but sometimes complete, articulated fossils—are known from early Cambrian and middle Cambrian fossil deposits across the globe.
The Cambrian explosion was a period of rapid multicellular growth. Most animal life during the Cambrian was aquatic. Trilobites were once assumed to be the dominant life form at that time, [58] but this has proven to be incorrect. Arthropods were by far the most dominant animals in the ocean, but trilobites were only a minor part of the total ...
Cambrian explosion, the large bio-diversification event that occurred during the Cambrian. Opabinia, a genus of bizarre stem-group arthropod distantly related to the radiodonts. Wiwaxia, a genus of possible mollusk that had copious numbers of carbonaceous scales, and lived alongside Anomalocaris. Paleobiota of the Burgess Shale
Haikouichthys / ˌ h aɪ k u ˈ ɪ k θ ɪ s / is an extinct genus of craniate (animals with notochords and distinct heads) that lived 518 million years ago, during the Cambrian explosion of multicellular life. The type species, Haikouichthys ercaicunensis, was first described in 1999. [2]
538.8 Ma – 251.9 Ma and contains the Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous and Permian periods. With only a handful of species surviving today, the Nautiloids flourished during the early Paleozoic era, from the Late Cambrian, where they constituted the main predatory animals. [71]
The sudden emergence of many new species, phyla, and forms in this period is called the Cambrian Explosion. It was a form of adaptive radiation, where vacant niches left by the extinct Ediacaran biota were filled up by the emergence of new phyla. [156] The biological fomenting in the Cambrian Explosion was unprecedented before and since that time.
There are many other comparable Cambrian lagerstätten; indeed such assemblages are far more common in the Cambrian than in any other period. This is mainly due to the limited extent of burrowing activity; as such bioturbation became more prevalent throughout the Cambrian, environments capable of preserving organisms' soft parts became much ...