cambrian

Far more than bumpy black blobs scuttling on the ocean floor, trilobites could be found throughout the water column, even venturing out on the beach at low tide. Their own excellent eyesight and need to camouflage against predators probably meant trilobites came in a variety of colors and patterns, like today’s crustaceans.

Throughout Earth’s history, some animals were thought to have gone completely extinct — only to show up again alive and well. This video by PBS Eons covers what scientists call Lazarus taxa. These groups of animals seem to “cheat death” by eluding our detection after their presumed extinction.

A suspension feeding “worm” from the Cambrian Burgess Shale held on to the ground with its rear legs and used its feather-like front legs to capture food out of the water.

Hyoliths, an enigmatic group of Paleozoic invertebrates have long puzzled paleontologists. A new analysis of hundreds of specimens shows that they are close relatives of brachiopods or lamp shells.

The ozone layer, primarily known today for its role in shielding us from harmful ultraviolet radiation that causes sunburns, may have played an important role in the colonization of life on land.

The Cambrian is remembered as a time when there was nothing on land and all life existed in the oceans. Gone were the days of simple one-celled organisms for an evolutionary explosion had just occurred and animal life had mushroomed into hundreds of new forms. It was a time of change, when the seas were ruled by creatures seemingly straight out of science fiction.

508-million-year-old fossils of the shrimp-like Waptia is the first evidence of an animal caring for their offspring.

Modern comb jellies are jellyfish-like invertebrates that look like floating plastic bags and often sport trailing tentacles. But their prehistoric relatives traded their arms for heavy armor.

On the scale from normal to weird, a little worm called Collinsium is off the charts. Hailing from the Cambrian Period of China, it joins a strange menagerie of sea life from long ago.