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Russell Dean Christopher Bicknell, Post-doctoral researcher in Palaeobiology, Flinders University

500-million-year-old fossil helps fill a strange gap in our record of life on Earth

Earth the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History
Artist's reconstruction of _Magnicornaspis garwoodi_ in life. Thomas Turner

Roughly 500 million years ago, a strange event in the evolution of life on Earth seems to have taken place.

The known fossil record from this time, which falls within the Cambrian period, contains a missing chapter. Palaeontologists refer to it as the “Furongian gap”. And it’s striking because there is an explosion of biodiversity within the fossil record both immediately before and after it.

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