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Ediacaran biota

Kimberella
Kimberella
Photo: Kimberella, by Ghedoghedo / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0).

#2 Story of 2020: Kimberella Is No Solution to the Cambrian Conundrum

None of the Cambrian animal phyla is represented in the Ediacaran fossil record. Read More ›
Kimberella
Kimberella
Photo: Kimberella, by Ghedoghedo / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0).

Kimberella Is No Solution to the Cambrian Conundrum

The fossil record speaks clearly and cries out loud: the history of life on Earth is a history of saltations. Read More ›
Kimberella
Kimberella
Photo: Traces from Kimberella, by Aleksey Nagovitsyn (User:Alnagov) / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0).

Kimberella — Locomotory Tracks

But what about tracks of the moving animal? There are indeed some fossils from the White Sea. Read More ›
Kimberella quadrata with associated scratch marks
Kimberella quadrata with associated scratch marks
Photo: Kimberella quadrata with associated scratch marks as putative feeding traces, by Masahiro miyasaka / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0).

Kimberella — Controversial Scratch Marks

A former teacher of mine was the late Adolf Seilacher, who was a leading authority on trace fossils and who for obvious reasons preferred to be called "Dolf." Read More ›
Kimberella
Kimberella
Photo: Kimberella, via Wikimedia Commons.

Kimberella — Four Phases of Interpretation

In the quite checkered history of the detailed reconstruction of Kimberella, we can distinguish four distinct successive phases. Read More ›
Kimberella
Kimberella
Photo: Kimberella, by Ghedoghedo / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0).

Conflicting Views about Kimberella’s Ecology

Based on the same fossil evidence, there is obviously much room for speculation and quite different opinions. Read More ›
Kimberella quadrata
Kimberella quadrata
Image: Kimberella quadrata, by MUSE / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0).

Kimberella — A Checkered History

John Kimber collected the first fossils of this organism and died tragically at age 38 during an expedition in South Australia in 1964. Read More ›
Kimberella quadrata
Kimberella quadrata
Photo: Dorsal mold of Kimberella quadrata from the Ediacaran of Russia,
showing the cuticular dorsal shield with tubercular nodes and the tapered oral end; by Aleksey Nagovitsyn: Wikimedia, GNU FDL).

Was Kimberella a Precambrian Mollusk?

If identified as an animal, it would “predate the Cambrian explosion of bilaterian animal phyla as a kind of ‘advance guard.’” Read More ›
Paleontologist examines Ediacaran fossils
Photo: Paleontologist examines Ediacaran fossils, Mistaken Point Ecological Reserve, by EOL Learning and Education Group / CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0).

Namacalathus, Alleged Ediacaran “Animal,” Fails to Refute Abrupt Cambrian Explosion

It could be anything, from a coelenterate-grade or sponge-grade organism to even a protist or an alga. Read More ›
A_Guantanamo_sponge_-a

The Myth of Precambrian Sponges

Evolutionists would expect to find sponges as the earliest animals in the fossil record. Read More ›

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