The rise of multicellularity represents a major evolutionary transition and it occurred
independently in multiple eukaryote clades. Although simple multicellular organisms may …

The Weng'an Biota is a fossil Konservat-Lagerstätte in South China that is c. 570–609 myr
old and provides an unparalleled snapshot of marine life during the interval in which …

An extraordinarily well preserved, 600-million-year (Myr)-old, three-dimensionally
phosphatized fossil displaying multiple independent characters of modern adult sponges …

Globular fossils showing palintomic cell cleavage in the Ediacaran Doushantuo Formation,
China, are widely regarded as embryos of early metazoans, although metazoan …

The Doushantuo Formation at Weng'an in Guizhou Province, South China, is best known for
animal embryo-like microfossils preserved in phosphorites. However, this unit also contains …

Background Two theories for the origin of animal life cycles with planktotrophic larvae are
now discussed seriously: The terminal addition theory proposes a holopelagic …

The Ediacaran Doushantuo biota has yielded fossils that include the oldest widely accepted
record of the animal evolutionary lineage, as well as specimens with alleged bilaterian …

Fossils described as Vernanimalcula guizhouena, from the nearly 600 million‐year‐old
Doushantuo Formation in South China, have been interpreted as the remains of bilaterian …

Acritarchs are problematic organic-walled microfossils, traditionally regarded as
phytoplankton, but also as cysts of metazoans or mesomycetozoans, and fungi. This review …

Since Dolf Seilacher coined the term Konservat-Lagerstätten in 1970, these deposits have
migrated from the margins to the mainstream of paleontological research. With greater …