Ediacaran biota

The Ediacaran biota are the fauna of the Ediacaran period. This geological period was from 635–542 million years ago, but the fossil biota was only from 575–542 million years ago. This was after a series of ice ages and just before the Cambrian period. The biota consists of soft-bodied multicellular organisms, probably animals, which left trace fossils in rocks of Ediacaran age.

The biota is quite unusual, and there is no sign of it in the earlier Marinoan glaciation. The biota appears to suffer a fairly severe extinction event at the boundary with the Cambrian. Some of the biota may have survived into the early Cambrian.^[1]

1. ↑ Bottjer, David J. 2002. Enigmatic Ediacaran fossils: ancestors or aliens? In Bottjer D.J. et al. (eds) Exceptional fossil preservation: a unique view on the evolution of marine life. Columbia, New York. p12