Ediacaran

Topic description and stories

‘Missing’ sea sponges discovered

05 Jun 2024

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

Half billion-year-old 'social network' observed in early animals

05 Mar 2020

Some of the first animals on Earth were connected by networks of thread-like filaments, the earliest evidence yet found of life being connected in...

Artist’s reconstruction of the community at Lower Mistaken Point

Why life on Earth first got big

25 Jun 2018

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...

The Ediacaran fossil Dickinsonia costata, specimen P40135 from the collections of the South Australia Museum, Adelaide

‘Mysterious’ ancient creature was definitely an animal, research confirms

15 Sep 2017

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...

Big, shape-shifting animals from the dawn of time

10 Jul 2017

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

Artist's reconstruction of the Fractofusus community on the H14 surface at Bonavista Peninsula

Earliest evidence of reproduction in a complex organism

03 Aug 2015

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...

Animals first flex their muscles

27 Aug 2014

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

Palaeontological reconstruction of rangeomorph fronds from the Ediacaran Period (635-541 million years ago) built using computer models of rangeomorph growth and development.

How some of the first animals lived - and died

11 Aug 2014

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