Ediacaran

The way that Earth’s first animals reproduced held back life’s diversity for millions of years, until stress and competition led to the development of...

The discovery, published in Nature, opens a new window on early animal evolution.

Some of the earliest complex organisms on Earth – possibly some of the earliest animals to exist – got big not to compete for food, but to spread...

It lived well over 550 million years ago, is known only through fossils and has variously been described as looking a bit like a jellyfish, a worm, a...

Major changes in the chemical composition of the world’s oceans enabled the first large organisms – possibly some of the earliest animals – to exist...

A new study of 565 million-year-old fossils has identified how some of the first complex organisms on Earth – possibly some of the first animals to...

A new fossil discovery identifies the earliest evidence for animals with muscles.

New three-dimensional reconstructions show how some of the earliest animals on Earth developed, and provide some answers as to why they went extinct....