Learn more about a time period marked by an intense burst of evolution. 3 min read The Cambrian period, part of the Paleozoic era, produced the most intense burst of evolution ever known.

visitors can follow fossil evidence tracing the evolution of life during the Cambrian period — the first geological period of the Paleozoic era — which lasted from 541 million to 485 million ...

This daily feast-and-famine cycle in oxygen availability created an intense physiological challenge for early animals, ...

Visitors at the Miraculous Life in the Ancient Oceans: Exhibition of Premium Fossils from the Cambrian Chengjiang Biota, held at the Natural History Museum of China in Beijing. WANG QIAN/CHINA ...

FROM 508 MILLION YEARS AGO TO TODAYPreserved in the Burgess Shale of British Columbia, the worm Canadia spinosa was part of an explosion in biodiversity during the Cambrian period that gave birth ...

A fossil analysis suggests that the yunnanozoan, a wormlike fish that flourished around 520 million years ago, sported structures that were the precursors of the head and jaws of modern vertebrates. A ...

Some animals could likely tell the difference between light and dark, but they never knew whether that looming shadow was a friend or foe. Then, at the beginning of the Cambrian Period, life opened ...

Internal, genetic factors were also crucial. Recent research suggests that the period prior to the Cambrian explosion saw the gradual evolution of a "genetic tool kit" of genes that govern ...

But during the Cambrian period, creatures with complex body structures emerged. Scientists who study such things call this the "Cambrian explosion" because it was a period of rapid evolution.

the most severe biological crisis since the Cambrian period. The research, published in Science Advances, challenges the ...

530 million years ago in the Early Cambrian period, earth’s creatures began dabbling in new methods of defense: shells. Speaker Mike Johnson unveils funding bill one week before potential ...