The evolutionary events that allowed the rapid occurrence of metazoa are still enigmatic. The presumably oldest metazoan fossils are microscopic and occur just above 635 Ma, at the beginning of the ...

Aug. 21 (UPI) --New fossil analysis suggests the planet's earliest known animals emerged at least 571 million years ago. The new study -- published this month in the journal Paleontology-- proves ...

Fossils of the bilaterian Ikaria wariootia found in South Australia represent one of the oldest examples of an organism with anterior and posterior differentiation, according to a study. During the ...

A fossil of Dickinsonia, an early animal from the Ediacaran period (635-539 million years ago) found in India’s Bhimbetka caves 1 has been revealed to be simply a decayed beehive. The ‘fossil’, ...

IN THE 1800s, when early geologists started to work out the order in which things had happened in Earth’s history, they quickly assembled a rough chronology. Though their successors had to wait until ...