About the event

Dr Frankie Dunn
Research fellow, Oxford University Museum of Natural History

The radiation of animals across the Ediacaran-Cambrian transition is one of the most transformational events in Earth History, radically changing Earth's surface environments. However, while fossils from the Cambrian are readily recognised as belonging to extant groups, those from the late Ediacaran Period show distinctive forms with no counterparts among living species. Although these Ediacaran fossils are often held to represent the antecedents to modern animal groups, their strange anatomies have meant that, for the most part, they have been eschewed from the debate and their unique insight left unrealised. My work shows that the Ediacaran fossils are likely occupy a critical position in the tree of life.

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