Exceptionally preserved fossils from the Ediacaran period challenge what scientists thought was possible in sandstone. In the fossil record, creatures without hard shells or skeletons, such as ...

Charles Darwin worried that the fossil record looked strangely abrupt, with complex animals appearing in a geological instant ...

During these waves of mass extinction, most vertebrate survivors were confined to refugia, or isolated biodiversity hotspots ...

The Moroccan fossils now provide tangible evidence from this mysterious transitional period. What makes these fossils particularly significant is the precision with which they can be dated. The ...

The oldest fossilized remains of complex animals appear suddenly in the fossil record, and as if from nowhere, in rocks that ...