@article{walcott1908mount53,
    author = "Walcott, C. D",
    title = "Mount Stephan rocks and fossils",
    year = "1908",
    journal = "Canadian Alpine Journal, v. 1, no. 2, p. 232-248",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Walcott, C. D., 1908, Mount Stephan rocks and fossils: Canadian Alpine Journal, v. 1, no. 2, p. 232-248.}"
}

@misc{walcott1911middle54,
    author = "Walcott, C. D",
    title = "Middle Cambrian Merostomata. Cambrian Geology and Paleontology, II",
    year = "1911",
    howpublished = "Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, v. 57, p. 17-40",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Walcott, C. D., 1911, Middle Cambrian Merostomata. Cambrian Geology and Paleontology, II: Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, v. 57, p. 17-40.}"
}

@misc{walcott1911middle55,
    author = "Walcott, C. D",
    title = "Middle Cambrian holothurians and medusae. Cambrian Geology and Paleontology",
    year = "1911",
    howpublished = "Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, v. 57, p. 41-68",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Walcott, C. D., 1911, Middle Cambrian holothurians and medusae. Cambrian Geology and Paleontology: Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, v. 57, p. 41-68.}"
}

@misc{walcott1911middle56,
    author = "Walcott, C. D",
    title = "Middle Cambrian annelids. Cambrian Geology and Paleontology",
    year = "1911",
    howpublished = "Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, v. 57, p. 109-144",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Walcott, C. D., 1911, Middle Cambrian annelids. Cambrian Geology and Paleontology: Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, v. 57, p. 109-144.}"
}

@misc{walcott1912middle57,
    author = "Walcott, C. D",
    title = "Middle Cambrian Branchiopoda, Malacostraca, Trilobita and Merostomata. Cambrian Geology and Paleontology, II",
    year = "1912",
    howpublished = "Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, v. 57, p. 145-228",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Walcott, C. D., 1912, Middle Cambrian Branchiopoda, Malacostraca, Trilobita and Merostomata. Cambrian Geology and Paleontology, II: Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, v. 57, p. 145-228.}"
}

@misc{walcott1916evidence58,
    author = "Walcott, C. D",
    title = "Evidence of primitive life",
    year = "1916",
    howpublished = "Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution for 1915 [published in 1916], p. 235-255",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Walcott, C. D., 1916, Evidence of primitive life: Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution for 1915 [published in 1916], p. 235-255.}"
}

@misc{walcott1918appendages59,
    author = "Walcott, C. D",
    title = "Appendages of trilobites. Cambrian Geology and Paleontology, IV",
    year = "1918",
    howpublished = "Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, v. 67, p. 115-216",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Walcott, C. D., 1918, Appendages of trilobites. Cambrian Geology and Paleontology, IV: Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, v. 67, p. 115-216.}"
}

@misc{walcott1919middle60,
    author = "Walcott, C. D",
    title = "Middle Cambrian Algae. Cambrian Geology and Paleontology, IV",
    year = "1919",
    howpublished = "Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, v. 67, p. 217-260",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Walcott, C. D., 1919, Middle Cambrian Algae. Cambrian Geology and Paleontology, IV: Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, v. 67, p. 217-260.}"
}

@inproceedings{hutchinson1931restudy45,
    author = "Hutchinson, G. E",
    title = "Restudy of some Burgess Shale fossils",
    year = "1931",
    booktitle = "Proceedings of the United States National Museum, v. 78, no. 11, p. 1-24",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Hutchinson, G. E., 1931, Restudy of some Burgess Shale fossils: Proceedings of the United States National Museum, v. 78, no. 11, p. 1-24.}"
}

@misc{walcott1931addenda61,
    author = "Walcott, C. D",
    title = "Addenda to description of Burgess Shale fossils [with explanatory notes by C.E. Resser]",
    year = "1931",
    howpublished = "Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, v. 85, p. 1- 46",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Walcott, C. D., 1931, Addenda to description of Burgess Shale fossils [with explanatory notes by C.E. Resser]: Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, v. 85, p. 1- 46.}"
}

@article{doi101111j150239311969tb01258x,
    author = "Glaessner, Martin F.",
    title = "TRACE FOSSILS FROM THE PRECAMBRIAN AND BASAL CAMBRIAN",
    year = "1969",
    journal = "Lethaia",
    abstract = "Certain worm-like configurations on rocks are recognized as shrinkage-crack infillings. Some genuine Precambrian trace fossils are briefly described. The early Cambrian contains a richer assemblage, including some distinctive and widespread form genera. The study of early trace fossils leads to conclusions not only on facies, but also on the evolution of behaviour and functional morphology in soft-bodied organisms.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1502-3931.1969.tb01258.x",
    doi = "10.1111/j.1502-3931.1969.tb01258.x",
    openalex = "W1975727583",
    references = "doi1010160031018266900113, doi101038scientificamerican036172, doi10108011035896509448903, doi101086626811, doi101111j1469185x1962tb01331x, doi101111j150239311968tb01740x, doi101126science1543750766, doi101130gsab481873, doi101144gsljgs1890046010439, openalexw2170541304, openalexw2586923183"
}

@article{doi101111j150239311970tb00829x,
    author = "Bengtson, Stefan",
    title = "THE LOWER CAMBRIAN FOSSIL TOMMOTIA",
    year = "1970",
    journal = "Lethaia",
    abstract = "The genera Tommotia Missarẑevskij 1970 (1966) and Camenella Missarẑevskij 1966 from the Lower Cambrian Tommotian Stage of the Siberian Platform represent different skeletal parts of the same organism and are consequently synonymous. Tommotia is selected as the valid name. Tommotia baltica n.sp. is described from the Lower Cambrian zone of Mobergella holsti of the Kalmarsund area in the southern part of the Baltic Sea. The Lower Cambrian families Tommotiidae Missarzevskij 1970 (1969) and Tannuolinidae Fonin \& Smirnova 1967 show important similarities in their basic structure and are brought together in the new order Mitrosagophora, characterized by a composite outer skeleton with two types of skeletal elements, termed ‘mitral’ and ‘sellate’, each occurring in symmetrical pairs. The group is of uncertain systematic position but may have affinities with the Machaeridia. The Scandinavian zone of Mobergella holsti is correlated with the Siberian zone of Dokidocyathus lenaicus and Majatheca tumefacta, the uppermost zone of the Tommotian Stage.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1502-3931.1970.tb00829.x",
    doi = "10.1111/j.1502-3931.1970.tb00829.x",
    openalex = "W2075969208"
}

@techreport{whittington1971redescription62,
    author = "Whittington, H. B",
    title = "Redescription of Marrella splendens(Trilobitoidea) from the Burgess Shale, Middle Cambrian, British Columbia",
    year = "1971",
    howpublished = "Geological Survey of Canada Bulletin, v. 209, p. 1-24",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Whittington, H. B., 1971, Redescription of Marrella splendens(Trilobitoidea) from the Burgess Shale, Middle Cambrian, British Columbia: Geological Survey of Canada Bulletin, v. 209, p. 1-24.}"
}

@article{durham1974systematic38,
    author = "Durham, J. W",
    title = "Systematic position of Eldonia ludwigi Walcott",
    year = "1974",
    journal = "Journal of Paleontology, v. 48, p. 750-755",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Durham, J. W., 1974, Systematic position of Eldonia ludwigi Walcott: Journal of Paleontology, v. 48, p. 750-755.}"
}

@techreport{whittington1974yohoia63,
    author = "Whittington, H. B",
    title = "Yohoia Walcott and Plenocaris n. gen., arthropods from the Burgess Shale, Middle Cambrian, British Columbia",
    year = "1974",
    howpublished = "Geological Survey of Canada Bulletin, v. 231, p. 1-21",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Whittington, H. B., 1974, Yohoia Walcott and Plenocaris n. gen., arthropods from the Burgess Shale, Middle Cambrian, British Columbia: Geological Survey of Canada Bulletin, v. 231, p. 1-21.}"
}

@misc{hughes1975redescription44,
    author = "Hughes, C. P",
    title = "Redescription of Burgessia bella from the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale, British Columbia",
    year = "1975",
    howpublished = "Fossils and Strata (Oslo), v. 4, p. 415-435",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Hughes, C. P., 1975, Redescription of Burgessia bella from the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale, British Columbia: Fossils and Strata (Oslo), v. 4, p. 415-435.}"
}

@article{whittington1975the64,
    author = "Whittington, H. B",
    title = "The enigmatic animal Opabinia regalis, Middle Cambrian, Burgess Shale, British Columbia",
    year = "1975",
    journal = "Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London B, v. 271, p. 1-43",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Whittington, H. B., 1975, The enigmatic animal Opabinia regalis, Middle Cambrian, Burgess Shale, British Columbia: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London B, v. 271, p. 1-43.}"
}

@misc{whittington1975trilobites65,
    author = "Whittington, H. B",
    title = "Trilobites with appendages from the Middle Cambrian, Burgess Shale, British Columbia",
    year = "1975",
    howpublished = "Fossils and Strata (Oslo), v. 4, p. 97-136",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Whittington, H. B., 1975, Trilobites with appendages from the Middle Cambrian, Burgess Shale, British Columbia: Fossils and Strata (Oslo), v. 4, p. 97-136.}"
}

@misc{bethell1976darwins6,
    author = "Bethell, T",
    title = "Darwin's Mistake",
    year = "1976",
    howpublished = "Harper's",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Bethell, T., 1976, Darwin's Mistake: Harper's.}"
}

@techreport{briggs1976the7,
    author = "Briggs, D. E. G",
    title = "The arthropod Branchiocaris n. gen., Middle Cambrian, Burgess Shale, British Columbia",
    year = "1976",
    howpublished = "Geological Survey of Canada Bulletin, v. 264, p. 1-29",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Briggs, D. E. G., 1976, The arthropod Branchiocaris n. gen., Middle Cambrian, Burgess Shale, British Columbia: Geological Survey of Canada Bulletin, v. 264, p. 1-29.}"
}

@misc{conwaymorris1976a25,
    author = "Conway Morris, S",
    title = "A new Cambrian lophophorate from the Burgess Shale of British Columbia",
    year = "1976",
    howpublished = "Palaeontology, v. 19, p. 199-222",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Conway Morris, S., 1976, A new Cambrian lophophorate from the Burgess Shale of British Columbia: Palaeontology, v. 19, p. 199-222.}"
}

@misc{conwaymorris1976nectocaris24,
    author = "Conway Morris, S",
    title = "Nectocaris pteryx, a new organism from the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale of British Columbia",
    year = "1976",
    howpublished = "Nueus Jahrbuch fr Geologie und Palontologie, v. 12, p. 705-713",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Conway Morris, S., 1976, Nectocaris pteryx, a new organism from the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale of British Columbia: Nueus Jahrbuch fr Geologie und Palontologie, v. 12, p. 705-713.}"
}

@misc{bengtson1977early4,
    author = "Bengtson, S",
    title = "Early Cambrian button-shaped phosphatic microfossils from the Siberian platform",
    year = "1977",
    howpublished = "Palaeontology, v. 20, p. 751-762",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Bengtson, S., 1977, Early Cambrian button-shaped phosphatic microfossils from the Siberian platform: Palaeontology, v. 20, p. 751-762.}"
}

@misc{briggs1977bivalved8,
    author = "Briggs, D. E. G",
    title = "Bivalved arthropods from the Cambrian Burgess Shale of British Columbia",
    year = "1977",
    howpublished = "Palaeontology, v. 20, p. 595-621",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Briggs, D. E. G., 1977, Bivalved arthropods from the Cambrian Burgess Shale of British Columbia: Palaeontology, v. 20, p. 595-621.}"
}

@misc{conwaymorris1977a26,
    author = "Conway Morris, S",
    title = "A new entoproct-like organism from the Burgess Shale of British Columbia",
    year = "1977",
    howpublished = "Palaeontology, v. 20, p. 833-845",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Conway Morris, S., 1977, A new entoproct-like organism from the Burgess Shale of British Columbia: Palaeontology, v. 20, p. 833-845.}"
}

@misc{conwaymorris1977a27,
    author = "Conway Morris, S",
    title = "A redescription of the Middle Cambrian worm Amiskwia sagittiformis Walcott from the Burgess Shale of British Columbia",
    year = "1977",
    howpublished = "Palontologische Zeitschrift, v. 51, p. 271-287",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Conway Morris, S., 1977, A redescription of the Middle Cambrian worm Amiskwia sagittiformis Walcott from the Burgess Shale of British Columbia: Palontologische Zeitschrift, v. 51, p. 271-287.}"
}

@misc{conwaymorris1977a28,
    author = "Conway Morris, S",
    title = "A new metazoan from the Cambrian Burgess Shale of British Columbia",
    year = "1977",
    howpublished = "Palaeontology, v. 20, p. 623-640",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Conway Morris, S., 1977, A new metazoan from the Cambrian Burgess Shale of British Columbia: Palaeontology, v. 20, p. 623-640.}"
}

@misc{conwaymorris1977fossil29,
    author = "Conway Morris, S",
    title = "Fossil priapulid worms, 20 of Special Papers in Palaeontology",
    year = "1977",
    howpublished = "London, Palaeontological Association",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Conway Morris, S., 1977, Fossil priapulid worms, 20 of Special Papers in Palaeontology: London, Palaeontological Association.}"
}

@article{whittington1977the66,
    author = "Whittington, H. B",
    title = "The Middle Cambrian trilobite Naraoia, Burgess Shale, British Columbia",
    year = "1977",
    journal = "Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London B, v. 280, p. 409-443",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Whittington, H. B., 1977, The Middle Cambrian trilobite Naraoia, Burgess Shale, British Columbia: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London B, v. 280, p. 409-443.}"
}

@article{briggs1978the9,
    author = "Briggs, D. E. G",
    title = "The morphology, mode of life, and affinities of Canadaspis perfecta (Crustacea",
    year = "1978",
    journal = "Phyllocarida), Middle Cambrian, Burgess Shale, British Columbia: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London B, v. 281, p. 439-487",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Briggs, D. E. G., 1978, The morphology, mode of life, and affinities of Canadaspis perfecta (Crustacea: Phyllocarida), Middle Cambrian, Burgess Shale, British Columbia: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London B, v. 281, p. 439-487.}"
}

@article{conwaymorris1978laggania30,
    author = "Conway Morris, S",
    title = "Laggania cambria Walcott",
    year = "1978",
    journal = "A composite fossil: Journal of Paleontology, v. 52, p. 126-131",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Conway Morris, S., 1978, Laggania cambria Walcott: A composite fossil: Journal of Paleontology, v. 52, p. 126-131.}"
}

@article{doi101098rstb19780005,
    author = "Briggs, Derek E. G.",
    title = "The morphology, mode of life, and affinities of Canadaspis perfecta (Crustacea: Phyllocarida), Middle Cambrian, Burgess Shale, British Columbia",
    year = "1978",
    journal = "Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences",
    abstract = "Abstract A detailed description and reconstruction of Canadaspis perfecta demonstrates its status as the earliest well-preserved crustacean. The cephalon consisted of five somites (in addition to the eyes), the thorax eight, and the abdomen seven, excluding the telson. Two pairs of apparently uniramous antennae flanked a median cephalic spine. The mandible bore a massive incisor process posterior of a molar area made up of finer spines, and apparently lacked a palp. The first and second maxillae were essentially similar to the eight pairs of thoracopods, with a multisegmented inner ramus, and foliaceous outer ramus made up of wide filaments attached to a proximal lobe. A bivalved carapace covered the thorax; no rostral plate was present. The abdomen lacked appendages, apart from a pair of spinose ventral projections of the pre-telson somite. There was no caudal furca. The evidence suggests that C. perfecta fed on coarse particles, possibly with the aid of currents set up by the biramous appendages. The erection of a new order Canadaspidida and family Canadaspididae Novozhilov (in Orlov 1960) to include Canadaspis is vindicated, and they are re-defined and the subclass Phyllocarida amended to include them.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.1978.0005",
    doi = "10.1098/rstb.1978.0005",
    openalex = "W2118011680",
    references = "doi10108000222937908562419, doi10108002693445189212028021, doi101086279772, doi101098rstb19750033, doi101111j109636421973tb00790x, doi101111j1469185x1958tb01258x, doi1023072411440, doi102307sysbio131453, doi105281zenodo16273729, doi105962bhltitle15764"
}

@article{whittington1978the67,
    author = "Whittington, H. B",
    title = "The lobopod animal Aysheaia pendunculata Walcott, Middle Cambrian, Burgess Shale, British Columbia",
    year = "1978",
    journal = "Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London B, v. 284, p. 165-197",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Whittington, H. B., 1978, The lobopod animal Aysheaia pendunculata Walcott, Middle Cambrian, Burgess Shale, British Columbia: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London B, v. 284, p. 165-197.}"
}

@misc{briggs1979anomalocaris10,
    author = "Briggs, D. E. G",
    title = "Anomalocaris, the largest known Cambrian arthropod",
    year = "1979",
    howpublished = "Palaeontology, v. 22, p. 631-634",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Briggs, D. E. G., 1979, Anomalocaris, the largest known Cambrian arthropod: Palaeontology, v. 22, p. 631-634.}"
}

@article{conwaymorris1979middle31,
    author = "Conway Morris, S",
    title = "Middle Cambrian polychaetes from the Burgess Shale of British Columbia",
    year = "1979",
    journal = "Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London B, v. 285, p. 227-274",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Conway Morris, S., 1979, Middle Cambrian polychaetes from the Burgess Shale of British Columbia: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London B, v. 285, p. 227-274.}"
}

@misc{conwaymorris1979the36,
    author = "Conway Morris, S. and Whittington, H. B",
    title = "The animals of the Burgess Shale",
    year = "1979",
    howpublished = "Scientific American, v. 240 (January), no. 1, p. 122-133",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Conway Morris, S., and Whittington, H. B., 1979, The animals of the Burgess Shale: Scientific American, v. 240 (January), no. 1, p. 122-133.}"
}

@article{doi101146annureves10110179001551,
    author = "Morris, Simon Conway",
    title = "The Burgess Shale (Middle Cambrian) Fauna",
    year = "1979",
    journal = "Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics",
    abstract = "The preservation of soft parts in fossils is rare because fossilization usually occurs long after decay has destroyed soft tissues. A notable exception is the soft-bodied fauna from the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale (about 530 million years old) located near Field in southern British Columbia, where both completely soft-bodied groups (e.g. polychaetes) and the soft parts of creatures with resistant skeletons (e.g. trilobites) are beautifully preserved. In addition, this fauna includes animals with fragile skeletons of thin cuticle that normally do not fossilize. The Burgess Shale fauna is of special impor­ tance because it permits a unique glimpse of the period shortly after the upper Precambrian-lowermost Cambrian radiation of the Metazoa (26). In 1909 Charles Doolittle Walcott (Secretary of the Smithsonian Institu­ tion), returning from a field season, stopped to split open a rock that blocked a trail on the western slopes between Wapta Mountain and Mount Field. The rock contained soft-bodied fossils. The following year Walcott and his two sons located the original stratum: the Burgess Shale. Quarrying contin­ ued for several seasons (1910--l3, 1917), and more than 40,000 specimens were shipped to the Smithsonian Institution (USNM). Subsequent expedi­ tions by Harvard University (MCZ) in 1930 (92, 94), the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC) in 1966 and 1967 (153), and the Royal Ontario Museum (Toronto) in 1975 collected more material. After Walcott's preliminary publications (l35-l37, l39-146, 148), a much needed reinvestigation was undertaken by the GSC, with H. B. Whittington directing the paleontologi­ cal work.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.es.10.110179.001551",
    doi = "10.1146/annurev.es.10.110179.001551",
    openalex = "W2123112979",
    references = "doi101007bf02989565, doi101016b9780125886062500126, doi101016s0070457108711324, doi101017s0094837300005236, doi101098rstb19770117, doi101111j150239311975tb01311x, doi101130gsab49195, doi105479si009638017628061, openalexw2604533467, openalexw582491535"
}

@inproceedings{whittington1980the68,
    author = "Whittington, H. B",
    title = "The significance of the fauna of the Burgess Shale, Middle Cambrian, British Columbia",
    year = "1980",
    booktitle = "Proceedings of the Geologist's Association, v. 91, p. 127-148",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Whittington, H. B., 1980, The significance of the fauna of the Burgess Shale, Middle Cambrian, British Columbia: Proceedings of the Geologist's Association, v. 91, p. 127-148.}"
}

@misc{briggs1981relationships12,
    author = "Briggs, D. E. G",
    title = "Relationships of arthropods from the Burgess Shale and other Cambrian sequences",
    year = "1981",
    howpublished = "Open File Report 81-743, United States Geological Survey, pp. 38-41",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Briggs, D. E. G., 1981, Relationships of arthropods from the Burgess Shale and other Cambrian sequences. Open File Report 81-743, United States Geological Survey, pp. 38-41.}"
}

@article{briggs1981the11,
    author = "Briggs, D. E. G",
    title = "The arthropod Odaraia alata Walcott, Middle Cambrian, Burgess Shale, British Columbia",
    year = "1981",
    journal = "Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London B, v. 291, p. 541-585",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Briggs, D. E. G., 1981, The arthropod Odaraia alata Walcott, Middle Cambrian, Burgess Shale, British Columbia: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London B, v. 291, p. 541-585.}"
}

@article{bruton1981the20,
    author = "Bruton, D. L",
    title = "The arthropod Sidneyia inexpectans, Middle Cambrian, Burgess Shale, British Columbia",
    year = "1981",
    journal = "Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London B, v. 295, p. 619-656",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Bruton, D. L., 1981, The arthropod Sidneyia inexpectans, Middle Cambrian, Burgess Shale, British Columbia: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London B, v. 295, p. 619-656.}"
}

@article{doi101017s0094837300003778,
    author = "Sepkoski, J. John",
    title = "A factor analytic description of the Phanerozoic marine fossil record",
    year = "1981",
    journal = "Paleobiology",
    abstract = "Data on numbers of marine families within 91 metazoan classes known from the Phanerozoic fossil record are analyzed. The distribution of the 2800 fossil families among the classes is very uneven, with most belonging to a small minority of classes. Similarly, the stratigraphic distribution of the classes is very uneven, with most first appearing early in the Paleozoic and with many of the smaller classes becoming extinct before the end of that era. However, despite this unevenness, a Q -mode factor analysis indicates that the structure of these data is rather simple. Only three factors are needed to account for more than 90\% of the data. These factors are interpreted as reflecting the three great “evolutionary faunas” of the Phanerozoic marine record: a trilobite-dominated Cambrian fauna, a brachiopod-dominated later Paleozoic fauna, and a mollusc-dominated Mesozoic-Cenozoic, or “modern,” fauna. Lesser factors relate to slow taxonomic turnover within the major faunas through time and to unique aspects of particular taxa and times. Each of the three major faunas seems to have its own characteristic diversity so that its expansion or contraction appears as being intimately associated with a particular phase in the history of total marine diversity. The Cambrian fauna expands rapidly during the Early Cambrian radiations and maintains dominance during the Middle to Late Cambrian “equilibrium.” The Paleozoic fauna then ascends to dominance during the Ordovician radiations, which increase diversity dramatically; this new fauna then maintains dominance throughout the long interval of apparent equilibrium that lasts until the end of the Paleozoic Era. The modern fauna, which slowly increases in importance during the Paleozoic Era, quickly rises to dominance with the Late Permian extinctions and maintains that status during the general rise in diversity to the apparent maximum in the Neogene. The increase in diversity associated with the expansion of each new fauna appears to coincide with an approximately exponential decline of the previously dominant fauna, suggesting possible displacement of each evolutionary fauna by its successor.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1017/s0094837300003778",
    doi = "10.1017/s0094837300003778",
    openalex = "W2505144080",
    references = "doi10100797814613088367, doi1010160012825272900724, doi101017s0094837300004917, doi101017s009483730000508x, doi101017s0094837300005236, doi101017s0094837300005352, doi101017s0094837300005649, doi101017s0094837300005972, doi101017s0094837300012549, doi101126science17740541065, doi101126science2064415217, doi101130spe89p63, doi1023071483846, doi1023071796560, doi1023072405671, doi1023072412725, doi1023072412728, doi1023072806339, doi107312simp93764, openalexw1504049102, openalexw645218623"
}

@article{doi101098rstb19810164,
    author = "Bruton, David L.",
    title = "The arthropod Sidneyia inexpectans, Middle Cambrian, Burgess Shale, British Columbia",
    year = "1981",
    journal = "Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences",
    abstract = "Abstract Old and new specimens of Sidneyia inexpectans have been studied and are accompanied by explanatory drawings and photographs. New reconstructions of the animal are given together with a three-dimensional model. The body consisted of a cephalon with a long backwardly directed doublure, a thorax of nine articulating somites, abdomen with cylindrical exoskeleton of two or three somites and a telson. A caudal fan was formed by a pair of uropods articulating at the posterior margin of the last abdominal somite. The cephalon had stalked eyes and preoral antennae but no walking or grasping appendages. The first four somites of the thorax had paired uniramous, prehensile walking legs attached to the body by broad coxae with spiny gnathobases. The coxae were smaller on the five posterior thoracic somites and the paired appendages were biramous, each bearing a gill supported on a flap attached at its proximal end to the first podomere of the leg. The coxa-body attachment resembles that of modern merostomes and is in advance of trilobites. Evidence suggests that Sidneyia was a bottom-living, carnivorous animal eating larger and harder food than trilobites. Gut contents include ostracodes, hyolithids, small trilobites and phosphatic debris. Sidneyia is the earliest known form which could be an ancestor to merostomes, but its body plan and absence of chelicera distinguishes Sidneyia from this group. The holotype of Amiella ornata Walcott, 1911 is reinterpreted and its synonomy with S. inexpectans is confirmed.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.1981.0164",
    doi = "10.1098/rstb.1981.0164",
    openalex = "W1995782650",
    references = "doi101007bf03006730, doi101098rstb19640001, doi101098rstb19750033, doi101111j109636421952tb01854x, doi101111j109636421954tb02211x, doi101111j109636421965tb00500x, doi10182618200049639197506, doi1023072412988, doi104095103458, doi105281zenodo16490103, doi105962bhltitle66889"
}

@inproceedings{whittington1981cambrian70,
    author = "Whittington, H. B",
    title = "Cambrian amimals",
    year = "1981",
    booktitle = "Their ancestors and descendants: Proceedings of the Linnean Society (New South Wales), v. 105, p. 79-87",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Whittington, H. B., 1981, Cambrian amimals: Their ancestors and descendants: Proceedings of the Linnean Society (New South Wales), v. 105, p. 79-87.}"
}

@article{whittington1981rare69,
    author = "Whittington, H. B",
    title = "Rare arthropods from the Burgess Shale, Middle Cambrian, British Columbia",
    year = "1981",
    journal = "Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London B, v. 292, p. 329-357",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Whittington, H. B., 1981, Rare arthropods from the Burgess Shale, Middle Cambrian, British Columbia: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London B, v. 292, p. 329-357.}"
}

@article{conwaymorris1982the35,
    author = "Conway Morris, S. and Robinson, R. A",
    title = "The enigmatic medusoid Peytoia and a comparison of some Cambrian biotas",
    year = "1982",
    journal = "Journal of Paleontology, v. 56, p. 116-122",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Conway Morris, S., and Robinson, R. A., 1982, The enigmatic medusoid Peytoia and a comparison of some Cambrian biotas: Journal of Paleontology, v. 56, p. 116-122.}"
}

@article{doi101126science21545391501,
    author = "Raup, David M. and Sepkoski, J. John",
    title = "Mass Extinctions in the Marine Fossil Record",
    year = "1982",
    journal = "Science",
    abstract = "A new compilation of fossil data on invertebrate and vertebrate families indicates that four mass extinctions in the marine realm are statistically distinct from background extinction levels. These four occurred late in the Ordovician, Permian, Triassic, and Cretaceous periods. A fifth extinction event in the Devonian stands out from the background but is not statistically significant in these data. Background extinction rates appear to have declined since Cambrian time, which is consistent with the prediction that optimization of fitness should increase through evolutionary time.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1126/science.215.4539.1501",
    doi = "10.1126/science.215.4539.1501",
    openalex = "W1976721572",
    references = "doi101017s009483730000511x, doi101017s0094837300006539, doi101130spe89p63, doi105281zenodo16226412, openalexw2335729143, openalexw2591197405, openalexw2596207362"
}

@article{openalexw2344228935,
    author = "Pemberton, S. George and Frey, Robert W.",
    title = "Trace fossil nomenclature and the Planolites-Palaeophycus dilemma",
    year = "1982",
    journal = "Journal of Paleontology",
    abstract = "Because of fundamental differences between trace fossils and body fossils, ichnologic nomenclature is beset with difficulties. Foremost is inconsistent treatment by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (lack of sanction for post-1930 names, confusion over the rule of priority) and inadequate curation of type specimens. However, ichnologists have contributed their own problems via inadequate diagnoses and descriptions, misconceptions of ichnologic and taxonomic principles, proliferation of names and failure to engage in true monographic revisions. All these difficulties are illustrated in a thorough reevaluation of the ichnogenera Planolites Nicholson and Palaeophycus Hall. Contrary to a popular but ill-founded scheme in which these ichnogenera are differentiated simply on the presence or absence of branches, Planolites is an unlined burrow infilled with sediments having textural and fabricational characters unlike those of the host rock, whereas Palaeophycus is a lined burrow filled with sediments typically identical to those of the surrounding matrix. Planolites represents active backfilling of sediment in an ephemeral burrow constructed by a mobile deposit feeder and Palaeophycus represents passive sedimentation within an open dwelling burrow constructed by a predaceous or suspension-feeding animal. In addition to ichnological nomenclature and ethology, the ramifications are important in paleoecology, sedimentology and diagenetic studies. Currently recognized ichnospecies of Planolites include P. montanus Richter, P. beverleyensis (Billings) and P. annularis Walcott. Those of Palaeophycus include P. heberti (Saporta), P. tubularis Hall, P. striatus Hall, P. sulcatus (Miller and Dyer) and P. alternatus n. ichnosp.",
    openalex = "W2344228935",
    references = "doi1010079783642659232, doi101111j150239311980tb00632x, doi101130gsab10199, doi1023071485443, openalexw3127114020, openalexw574363047"
}

@article{bengtson1983the5,
    author = "Bengtson, S. and Fletcher, T. P",
    title = "The oldest sequence of skeletal fossils in the Lower Cambrian of southwestern Newfoudland",
    year = "1983",
    journal = "Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, v. 20, p. 525-536",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Bengtson, S., and Fletcher, T. P., 1983, The oldest sequence of skeletal fossils in the Lower Cambrian of southwestern Newfoudland: Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, v. 20, p. 525-536.}"
}

@misc{briggs1983affinities13,
    author = "Briggs, D. E. G",
    title = "Affinities and early evolution of the Crustacea",
    year = "1983",
    howpublished = "The evidence of the Cambrian fossils, in Schram, F. R., ed., Crustacean Phylogeny: Rotterdam, A.A. Balkema, p. 1-22",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Briggs, D. E. G., 1983, Affinities and early evolution of the Crustacea: The evidence of the Cambrian fossils, in Schram, F. R., ed., Crustacean Phylogeny: Rotterdam, A.A. Balkema, p. 1-22.}"
}

@misc{briggs1983the15,
    author = "Briggs, D. E. G. and Clarkson, E. N. K. and Aldridge, R. J",
    title = "The conodont animal",
    year = "1983",
    howpublished = "Lethaia, v. 16, p. 1-14",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Briggs, D. E. G., Clarkson, E. N. K., and Aldridge, R. J., 1983, The conodont animal: Lethaia, v. 16, p. 1-14.}"
}

@article{bruton1983emeraldella21,
    author = "Bruton, D. L. and Whittington, H. B",
    title = "Emeraldella and Leancholia, two arthropods from the Burgess Shale, British Columbia",
    year = "1983",
    journal = "Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London B, v. 300, p. 553-585",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Bruton, D. L., and Whittington, H. B., 1983, Emeraldella and Leancholia, two arthropods from the Burgess Shale, British Columbia: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London B, v. 300, p. 553-585.}"
}

@misc{collins1983new23,
    author = "Collins, D. H. and Briggs, D. E. G. and Conway Morris, S",
    title = "New Burgess Shale fossil sites reveal Middle Cambrian faunal complex",
    year = "1983",
    howpublished = "Science, v. 222, p. 163-167",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Collins, D. H., Briggs, D. E. G., and Conway Morris, S., 1983, New Burgess Shale fossil sites reveal Middle Cambrian faunal complex: Science, v. 222, p. 163-167.}"
}

@book{doi1010079781475707403,
    author = "Tevesz, Michael J. S. and McCall, Peter L.",
    title = "Biotic Interactions in Recent and Fossil Benthic Communities",
    year = "1983",
    booktitle = "Topics in geobiology",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-0740-3",
    doi = "10.1007/978-1-4757-0740-3",
    openalex = "W1993827688",
    references = "doi1010029783527809080cataz15836, doi101126science3095734532o"
}

@article{doi101098rstb19830020,
    author = "Bruton, David L. and Whittington, H. B.",
    title = "Emeraldella and Leanchoilia, two arthropods from the Burgess Shale, Middle Cambrian, British Columbia",
    year = "1983",
    journal = "Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences",
    abstract = "Abstract The type species of two much discussed but hitherto poorly known genera of arthropods are described in detail from new preparations. Illustrations are by photographs, explanatory line drawings, and reconstructions including three-dimensional models. The convex body of Emeraldella brocki was not trilobed, and was divided into a cephalon with labrum and 13 trunk somites, the first 11 having pleurae which were progressively narrower (transversely (tr.)) and more backwardly curved posteriorly, the last two somites being cylindrical, with a long posterior spine inserted into the 13th. A bilobed, spinose, ventral anal plate was probably attached to the 12th somite; the alimentary canal may have terminated in the 13th somite. The cephalon bore long antennae and five pairs of limbs, the first short, uniramous and jointed, the second to fifth biramous, the outer branch elongate-oval and having marginal filaments, the inner branches jointed and progressively longer. Trunk somites 1—11 each bore a pair of biramous limbs, the outer branch bilobed and with filaments on the distal margins, the jointed inner branches long on the anterior six or seven pairs. The coxae of the entire limb series bore a spinose gnathobase on the mesial edge, and the proximal podomeres of the leg branches were spinose. The outer branches were attached to the coxa and possibly the first podomere of the inner leg branch. The maximum known length of the body (excluding the posterior spine) was 65 mm; the animal lacked eyes, and was a benthonic predator and scavenger, walking on and digging into the muddy bottom, the gnathobases enabling soft food to be squeezed, shredded and passed forward along the midline to the backward-facing mouth. The outer branches were presumably gills, and may have aided in feeble swimming. Leanchoilia superlata had a smooth, convex, faintly trilobate exoskeleton. The head shield was subtriangular with an upturned snout. The 11 tergites had broad (tr.) pleurae, behind the fifth progressively narrower (tr.) and more backward-curving; the 11th was curved back beside a short, triangular tail spine, which bore lateral spines. Anteriorly the cephalon bore the great appendage, which consisted of a basal section and four additional stout podomeres shaped to curve through 90°. The second and third podomeres were each extended by a tapering shaft continued by a longer, annulated portion. The distal podomere consisted of a tapering shaft terminating in three claws and a long, annulated extension. The remainder of the body had 13 pairs of biramous appendages (two on the cephalon, one on each trunk somite), the outer branch a lobe having overlapping lamellae on the distal and posterior margins, the inner branch tapering, of some eight podomeres and terminal spines. The proximal portions of the appendages are not preserved, but the outer branch was attached so that the inner branch lay below the anterior border of the outer branch; the two branches were of similar length (tr.) and hung down below the body. The alimentary canal is preserved, filled anteriorly with apatite, the filling showing segmentation and annulation. The mouth was apparently downward- and forward-facing, and led into a bulbous foregut situated beneath the cephalon. The anus opened on the 11th trunk somite. The maximum known length of the body was 68 mm. The animal lacked eyes and was probably benthonic in habit, able to rest on the sediment surface on the great appendage and the tips of the inner branches and to swim over it by metachronal movements of the outer branches (which also acted as gills), the great appendage swung back beneath the body to reduce resistance. It was probably a detritus feeder, the food pushed into the midline by the limbs, the mouth presumably suctorial. There is no evidence of a labrum, or of gnathobasic basal podomeres, but the inner margin of the leg branch was setiferous. The single species of Emeraldella, E.brocki, is recognized, and the type and only specimen of ‘ Emeraldoides ’ is referred to it. Synonymous with Leanchoilia superlata are Walcott’s three species L. major, Bidentia difficilis and Emeraldella micrura, and Simonetta’s Leanchoilia amphiction, L. persephone and L. protogonia. Emeraldellabrocki may be allied with Molaria spinifera; problematical is any relationship to aglaspidids. Leanchoilia superlata may be most closely related to Actaeus armatus. Emeraldella and Leanchoilia are very different from one another, and from either Sidneyia or Naraoia; these four genera are so heterogeneous that Stormer’s grouping of them into the taxon Merostomoidea is rejected as no longer useful.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.1983.0020",
    doi = "10.1098/rstb.1983.0020",
    openalex = "W1994733314",
    references = "doi101038scientificamerican0779122, doi101098rstb19780005, doi101098rstb19810007, doi101098rstb19810164, doi101111j150239311971tb01862x, doi10182618200049639197528, doi10182618200049639197529, doi105281zenodo16490103"
}

@article{doi101126science2224620163,
    author = "Collins, Desmond and Briggs, Derek E. G. and Morris, Simon Conway",
    title = "New Burgess Shale Fossil Sites Reveal Middle Cambrian Faunal Complex",
    year = "1983",
    journal = "Science",
    abstract = "Soft-bodied and lightly sclerotized Burgess shale fossils have been found at more than a dozen new localities in an area extending for 20 kilometers along the front of the Cathedral Escarpment in the Middle Cambrian Stephen Formation of the Canadian Rockies. Five different fossil assemblages from four stratigraphic levels have been recognized. These assemblages represent distinct penecontemporaneous marine communities that together make up a normal fore-reef faunal complex.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1126/science.222.4620.163",
    doi = "10.1126/science.222.4620.163",
    openalex = "W1994380053",
    references = "doi101017s0094837300006539, doi101038scientificamerican0779122, doi101098rstb19810033, doi101130gsab51731, doi105281zenodo15932730, doi105281zenodo16490103, openalexw2600671946, openalexw2608196808, openalexw614215761"
}

@misc{aitken1984the1,
    author = "Aitken, J. D. and McIlreath, J. A",
    title = "The Cathedral Reef escarpment, a Cambrian great wall with humble origins",
    year = "1984",
    howpublished = "Geos: Energy Mines and Resources, Canada, v. 13, no. 1, p. 17-19",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Aitken, J. D., and McIlreath, J. A., 1984, The Cathedral Reef escarpment, a Cambrian great wall with humble origins: Geos: Energy Mines and Resources, Canada, v. 13, no. 1, p. 17-19.}"
}

@book{briggs1984exceptionally18,
    author = "Briggs, D. E. G. and Robinson, R. A",
    title = "Exceptionally preserved nontrilobite arthropods and Anomalocaris from the Middle Cambrian of Utah",
    year = "1984",
    publisher = "University of Kansas Paleontological Contributions; Paper 111",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Briggs, D. E. G., and Robinson, R. A., 1984, Exceptionally preserved nontrilobite arthropods and Anomalocaris from the Middle Cambrian of Utah: University of Kansas Paleontological Contributions; Paper 111.}"
}

@book{doi102110scn8415,
    author = "Ekdale, A. A. and Bromley, R. G. and Pemberton, S. George",
    title = "Ichnology: The Use of Trace Fossils in Sedimentology and Stratigraphy",
    year = "1984",
    booktitle = "SEPM (Society for Sedimentary Geology) eBooks",
    abstract = "Ichnology is a fascinating field of endeavor. As with science in general, it is a process of solving mysteries–in this case, mysteries of fossil behavior. In a very real sense the ichnologist is Sam Spade or Sherlock Holmes–following footprints, searching for traces of dastardly deeds, studying artifacts, attempting to reconstruct a sequence of events from subtle clues, pursuing the identity of someone (or something) long dead. Who was the culprit? What was he/she doing? Where was he/she living, working or going? Not only intellectually intriguing, ichnology also has practical application and economic importance. In today’s frenzied quest for energy and mineral resources, exploration geologists value every tool that aids their search. Ichnologic observations and analyses can help the sedimentologist reconstruct ancient depositional environments, help the stratigrapher correlate sedimentary strata, help the paleontologist determine the nature of fossil communities, and help the geochemist determine the effect of organisms on sediment composition. This publication was written to serve as a comprehensive and intelligible introduction to ichnology for anyone with even rudimentary geologic training, whether or not that person enrolls in a formal course on the subject. The book emphasizes sedimentologic, stratigraphic and paleoecologic al aspects of ichnology.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.2110/scn.84.15",
    doi = "10.2110/scn.84.15",
    openalex = "W635410625"
}

@misc{massa1984guide47,
    author = "Massa, W. R. and Jr",
    title = "Guide to the Cahrles D. Walcott Collection, 1851-1940",
    year = "1984",
    howpublished = "Smithsonian Institution",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Massa, W. R., Jr., 1984, Guide to the Cahrles D. Walcott Collection, 1851-1940: Smithsonian Institution.}"
}

@misc{briggs1985les14,
    author = "Briggs, D. E. G",
    title = "Les premiers arthopodes",
    year = "1985",
    howpublished = "La Recherche, v. 16, p. 340-349",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Briggs, D. E. G., 1985, Les premiers arthopodes: La Recherche, v. 16, p. 340-349.}"
}

@article{briggs1985modes19,
    author = "Briggs, D. E. G. and Whittington, H. B",
    title = "Modes of life of arthropods from the Burgess Shale, British Columbia",
    year = "1985",
    journal = "Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, v. 76, p. 149-160",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Briggs, D. E. G., and Whittington, H. B., 1985, Modes of life of arthropods from the Burgess Shale, British Columbia: Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, v. 76, p. 149-160.}"
}

@misc{collins1985a22,
    author = "Collins, D. H",
    title = "A new Burgess Shale type fauna in the Middle Cambrian Stephan Formation on Mount Stephan, British Columbia",
    year = "1985",
    howpublished = "In Annual Meeting, Geological Society of America, p.550",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Collins, D. H., 1985, A new Burgess Shale type fauna in the Middle Cambrian Stephan Formation on Mount Stephan, British Columbia. In Annual Meeting, Geological Society of America, p.550.}"
}

@misc{conwaymorris1985fossils37,
    author = "Conway Morris, S. and Whittington, H. B",
    title = "Fossils of the Burgess Shale. A national treasure in Yoho National Park, British Columbia",
    year = "1985",
    howpublished = "Geological Survey of Canada, Miscellaneous Reports, v. 43, p. 1-31",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Conway Morris, S., and Whittington, H. B., 1985, Fossils of the Burgess Shale. A national treasure in Yoho National Park, British Columbia: Geological Survey of Canada, Miscellaneous Reports, v. 43, p. 1-31.}"
}

@article{conwaymorris1985the32,
    author = "Conway Morris, S",
    title = "The Middle Cambrian metazoan Wiwaxia corrugata (Matthew) from the Burgess Shale and the Ogygopsis Shale, British Columbia, Canada",
    year = "1985",
    journal = "Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London B, v. 307, p. 507- 582",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Conway Morris, S., 1985, The Middle Cambrian metazoan Wiwaxia corrugata (Matthew) from the Burgess Shale and the Ogygopsis Shale, British Columbia, Canada: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London B, v. 307, p. 507- 582.}"
}

@article{doi101098rstb19850005,
    author = "Morris, Simon Conway",
    title = "The Middle Cambrian metazoan Wiwaxia corrugata (Matthew) from the Burgess Shale and Ogygopsis Shale, British Columbia, Canada",
    year = "1985",
    journal = "Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences",
    abstract = "Abstract A detailed redescription of the Middle Cambrian metazoan Wiwaxia corrugata (Matthew) is given with the aid of photographs, mostly taken under ultraviolet radiation, and explanatory camera lucida drawings. Wiwaxia is known only from the Stephen Formation with four localities within the Bathyuriscus-Elrathina Zone, the celebrated Burgess Shale (Phyllopod bed) and Ogygopsis Shale and two localities that appear to expose strata relatively high in the Formation, and a new locality in the underlying Glossopleura Zone. Specimens from the Ogygopsis Shale consist almost entirely of isolated sclerites, whereas in the Phyllopod bed the species is also known from entire specimens, semi-isolated assemblages and isolated soft-parts. T he description here is based almost entirely on Phyllopod bed m aterial. Wiwaxia was originally largely covered by sclerites. On the basis of shape and arrangement five distinct zones are recognizable: dorsal, upper lateral, lower lateral, anterior and ventro-lateral. In addition, there was a row of elongate dorso-lateral spinose sclerites running along either side of the body. Each sclerite was inserted separately via a root-like structure. Growth of the animal appears to have occurred by moulting of the sclerites; one unique juvenile specimen appears to be preserved in the act of moulting. The ventral surface was apparently an area of soft tissue devoid of sclerites. Little is known of the internal anatomy, although anteriorly there was a feeding apparatus consisting of two rows of posteriorly directed teeth. Most stages of growth are known varying from presumed juveniles, which at their smallest may have lacked spines, to adults over 50 mm long. Wiwaxia appears to have been an epifaunal deposit feeder that crawled across the sea-bed, although smaller juveniles may have been infaunal. The dorso-lateral spines may have provided protection against predators and the existence of broken spines suggests the successful deterrence of attack. The affinities of Wiwaxia do not appear to lie with the polychaetous annelids. While the possibilities of convergence cannot be eliminated, there appears to be a significant similarity between Wiwaxia and molluscs that suggests a related derivation from a turbellarian ancestor. Nevertheless, Wiwaxia has a distinctive bodyplan and as such cannot be accommodated in any known phylum. While Wiwaxia is unique to the Stephen Formation isolated sclerites from Lower Cambrian rocks appear to represent earlier wiwaxiids, although these sclerites show differences in their size and composition as com pared with Wiwaxia. Wiwaxia enhances knowledge of early metazoan evolution and ecology in the Cambrian. In particular, it gives fresh insights into the origin and relative success of certain metazoan bodyplans, the origin of trace fossils, and the importance of predation in Cambrian communities.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.1985.0005",
    doi = "10.1098/rstb.1985.0005",
    openalex = "W2165800154",
    references = "doi1010160301926879900226, doi101038285160a0, doi101098rstb19810007, doi101098rstb19810164, doi101111j1469185x1966tb01624x, doi101111j150239311969tb01258x, doi10182618200093301197301, doi102113gsecongeo644383, doi105281zenodo15942062, openalexw1575297980, openalexw3116078484"
}

@article{doi101098rstb19850134,
    author = "Seilacher, Adolf and Reif, Wolf‐Ernst and Westphal, Florian",
    title = "Sedimentological, ecological and temporal patterns of fossil Lagerstätten",
    year = "1985",
    journal = "Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences",
    abstract = "Abstract Preservation of non-mineralized structures (including plants) and of articulated skeletons results from extraordinary hydrographic, sedimentational and early diagenetic conditions. The corresponding chief causative effects (stagnation, obrution and bacterial sealing) define a conceptual continuum into which individual occurrences may be mapped. A more pragmatic, typological classification of conservation deposits, using a standard questionnaire, reveals ecological replacements, as well as trends related to the evolution of the biosphere, through geological time.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.1985.0134",
    doi = "10.1098/rstb.1985.0134",
    openalex = "W2111944730",
    references = "doi101007978364269317510, doi1010079783642758294, doi101007bfb0009832, doi101111j136530911982tb00072x, doi101111j150239311985tb00688x, doi101126science2224620163, doi101126science2244651872, doi101127njgpa1591980324, doi101306ad4616f116f711d78645000102c1865d"
}

@article{openalexw2603635224,
    author = "Crimes, T. P. and Anderson, Michael M.",
    title = "Trace fossils from late Precambrian-Early Cambrian strata of southeastern Newfoundland (Canada); temporal and environmental implications",
    year = "1985",
    journal = "Journal of Paleontology",
    openalex = "W2603635224",
    references = "doi101002gj3350070104, doi101007978140203609529, doi101111j150239311969tb01258x, doi101130009176131973169pswaan20co2, doi101139e83050, doi103931erara11638, hiscott1982tidal, openalexw2344228935, openalexw3116078484, openalexw3171394321, openalexw560220492, openalexw574363047"
}

@article{robinson1985affinities49,
    author = "Robinson, R. A",
    title = "Affinities of Aysheaia (Onychophora) with a description of a new Cambrian species",
    year = "1985",
    journal = "Journal of Paleontology, v. 59, p. 226-235",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Robinson, R. A., 1985, Affinities of Aysheaia (Onychophora) with a description of a new Cambrian species: Journal of Paleontology, v. 59, p. 226-235.}"
}

@book{vonnegut1985galpagos52,
    author = "Vonnegut, K",
    title = "Galpagos",
    year = "1985",
    publisher = "New York, Delacorte Press",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Vonnegut, K., 1985, Galpagos: New York, Delacorte Press.}"
}

@article{whittington1985extraordinary74,
    author = "Whittington, H. B. and Conway Morris, S",
    title = "Extraordinary Fossil Biotas",
    year = "1985",
    journal = "Their Ecological and Evolutionary Significance: London, Royal Society, 192 p.; Published originally in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London B 311:1-192",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Whittington, H. B., and Conway Morris, S., 1985, Extraordinary Fossil Biotas: Their Ecological and Evolutionary Significance: London, Royal Society, 192 p.; Published originally in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London B 311:1-192.}"
}

@article{whittington1985tegopelte71,
    author = "Whittington, H. B",
    title = "Tegopelte gigas, a second soft-bodied trilobite from the Burgess Shale, Middle Cambrian, British Columbia",
    year = "1985",
    journal = "Journal of Paleontology, v. 59, p. 1251-1274",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Whittington, H. B., 1985, Tegopelte gigas, a second soft-bodied trilobite from the Burgess Shale, Middle Cambrian, British Columbia: Journal of Paleontology, v. 59, p. 1251-1274.}"
}

@book{whittington1985the72,
    author = "Whittington, H. B",
    title = "The Burgess Shale",
    year = "1985",
    publisher = "New Haven, Connecticut, Yale University Press",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Whittington, H. B., 1985, The Burgess Shale: New Haven, Connecticut, Yale University Press.}"
}

@article{whittington1985the73,
    author = "Whittington, H. B. and Briggs, D. E. G",
    title = "The largest Cambrian animal, Anomalocaris, Burgess Shale, British Columbia",
    year = "1985",
    journal = "Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London B, v. 309, p. 569-609",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Whittington, H. B., and Briggs, D. E. G., 1985, The largest Cambrian animal, Anomalocaris, Burgess Shale, British Columbia: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London B, v. 309, p. 569-609.}"
}

@misc{zhangwentang1985preliminary75,
    author = "Zhang Wen-tang, Hou Xian-guang",
    title = "Preliminary notes on the occurance of the unusual trilobite Naraoia in Asia [in Chinese]",
    year = "1985",
    howpublished = "Acta Palaeontologica Sinica, v. 24, p. 591-595",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Zhang Wen-tang, and Hou Xian-guang, 1985, Preliminary notes on the occurance of the unusual trilobite Naraoia in Asia [in Chinese]: Acta Palaeontologica Sinica, v. 24, p. 591-595.}"
}

@book{briggs1986problematica17,
    author = "Briggs, D. E. G. and Conway Morris, S",
    title = "Problematica from the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale of British Columbia, in Hoffman, A., and Nitecki, M. H., eds., Problematic Fossil Taxa",
    year = "1986",
    publisher = "New York, Oxford University Press, p. 167-183",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Briggs, D. E. G., and Conway Morris, S., 1986, Problematica from the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale of British Columbia, in Hoffman, A., and Nitecki, M. H., eds., Problematic Fossil Taxa: New York, Oxford University Press, p. 167-183.}"
}

@misc{conwaymorris1986the33,
    author = "Conway Morris, S",
    title = "The community structure of the Middle Cambrian phyllopod bed (Burgess Shale)",
    year = "1986",
    howpublished = "Palaeontology, v. 29, p. 423-467",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Conway Morris, S., 1986, The community structure of the Middle Cambrian phyllopod bed (Burgess Shale): Palaeontology, v. 29, p. 423-467.}"
}

@article{doi101130009176131986143tmfrop20co2,
    author = "Savrda, Charles E. and Bottjer, David J.",
    title = "Trace-fossil model for reconstruction of paleo-oxygenation in bottom waters",
    year = "1986",
    journal = "Geology",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1130/0091-7613(1986)14<3:tmfrop>2.0.co;2",
    doi = "10.1130/0091-7613(1986)14<3:tmfrop>2.0.co;2",
    openalex = "W2040031322"
}

@misc{ludvigsen1986trilobite46,
    author = "Ludvigsen, R",
    title = "Trilobite biostratigraphic models and the paleoenvironment of the Burgess Shale (Middle Cambrian), Yoho National Park, British Columbia",
    year = "1986",
    howpublished = "Canadian Paleontology and Biostratigraphy Seminars",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Ludvigsen, R., 1986, Trilobite biostratigraphic models and the paleoenvironment of the Burgess Shale (Middle Cambrian), Yoho National Park, British Columbia: Canadian Paleontology and Biostratigraphy Seminars.}"
}

@book{openalexw587905045,
    author = "Hoffman, Antoni and Nitecki, Matthew H.",
    title = "Problematic fossil taxa",
    year = "1986",
    booktitle = "Oxford University Press eBooks",
    abstract = "Stefan Bengtson: Introduction: the problem of the Problematica Jack A Babcock: The puzzle of the alga-like Problematica, or rummaging around in the algal wastebasket Matthew H Nitecki: Receptaculitids and their relationship to other problematic fossils Andrey Yu Zhuravlev: Radiocyathids Ellis L Yochelson \& Richard H Lindemann: Considerations on systematic placement of the styliolines (Incertae sedis: Devonian) Mikhail A Fedonkin: Precambrian problematic animals: their body plan and phylogeny George D Stanley Jr: Chondrophorine hydrozoans as problematic fossils A Yu Rozanov: Problematica of the Early Cambrian Stefan Bengtson, S Crosbie Matthews, \& Vladimir V Missarzhevsky: The Cambrian netlike fossil Jerzy Dzik: Turrilepadida and other Machaeridia Loren E Babcock \& Rodney M Feldmann: The phylum Conulariida Barry D Webby: Early stromatoporoids Derek E G Briggs \& Simon Conway Morris: Problematica from the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale of British Columbia Adam Urbanek: The enigma of graptolite ancestry: lesson from a phylogenetic debate Richard J Aldridge \& Derek E G Briggs: Conodonts Jerzy Dzik: Chordate affinities of the conodonts Indexes.",
    openalex = "W587905045"
}

@misc{rigby1986sponges48,
    author = "Rigby, J. K",
    title = "Sponges of the Burgess Shale (Middle Cambrian) British Columbia",
    year = "1986",
    howpublished = "Palaeontographica Canada, v. 2",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Rigby, J. K., 1986, Sponges of the Burgess Shale (Middle Cambrian) British Columbia: Palaeontographica Canada, v. 2.}"
}

@misc{anonymous1987yohos3,
    author = "Anonymous",
    title = "Yoho's fossils have world significance",
    year = "1987",
    howpublished = "Yoho National Park Highline",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Anonymous, 1987, Yoho's fossils have world significance: Yoho National Park Highline.}"
}

@misc{conwaymorris1987a34,
    author = "Conway Morris, S. and Peel, J. S. and Higgins, A. K. and Soper, N. J. and Davis, N. C",
    title = "A Burgess Shale-like fauna from the Lower Cambrian of north Greenland",
    year = "1987",
    howpublished = "Nature, v. 326, p. 181-183",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Conway Morris, S., Peel, J. S., Higgins, A. K., Soper, N. J., and Davis, N. C., 1987, A Burgess Shale-like fauna from the Lower Cambrian of north Greenland: Nature, v. 326, p. 181-183.}"
}

@article{doi1010160016703787900755,
    author = "Wright, Judith and Schrader, Hans and Holser, William T.",
    title = "Paleoredox variations in ancient oceans recorded by rare earth elements in fossil apatite",
    year = "1987",
    journal = "Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1016/0016-7037(87)90075-5",
    doi = "10.1016/0016-7037(87)90075-5",
    openalex = "W2009802645",
    references = "doi10113000917613198311503tdonag20co2"
}

@article{doi101016019802548790207x,
    title = "Paleoredox variations in ancient oceans recorded by rare earth elements in fossil apatite",
    year = "1987",
    journal = "Deep Sea Research Part B Oceanographic Literature Review",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1016/0198-0254(87)90207-x",
    doi = "10.1016/0198-0254(87)90207-x",
    openalex = "W4238032652",
    references = "doi1010160146353581900460, doi1010160146638080900170, doi101016b978008012835150074x, doi101016b9780444421487500150, doi101111j150239311983tb01993x, doi101180dhz, doi1013065d25c80116c111d78645000102c1865d, doi102110pec77250019, doi103133pp995, openalexw1488282249, openalexw2106559152, openalexw2771693110"
}

@misc{sunweiguo1987early50,
    author = "Sun Wei-guo, Hou Xian-guang",
    title = "Early Cambrian medusae from Chengjiang, Yunnan, China [in Chinese]",
    year = "1987",
    howpublished = "Acta Palaeontologica Sinica, v. 26, p. 257-270",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Sun Wei-guo, and Hou Xian-guang, 1987, Early Cambrian medusae from Chengjiang, Yunnan, China [in Chinese]: Acta Palaeontologica Sinica, v. 26, p. 257-270.}"
}

@misc{sunweiguo1987early51,
    author = "Sun Wei-guo, Hou Xian-guang",
    title = "Early Cambrian worms from Chengjiang, Yunnan, China",
    year = "1987",
    howpublished = "Moatianshania Gen. Nov. [in Chinese]: Acta Palaeontologica Sinica, v. 26, p. 299-305",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Sun Wei-guo, and Hou Xian-guang, 1987, Early Cambrian worms from Chengjiang, Yunnan, China: Moatianshania Gen. Nov. [in Chinese]: Acta Palaeontologica Sinica, v. 26, p. 299-305.}"
}

@misc{xianguang1987early42,
    author = "Xian-guang, Hou",
    title = "Early Cambrian large bivalved arthropods from Chengjiang, Eastern Yunnan [in Chinese]",
    year = "1987",
    howpublished = "Acta Palaeontologica Sinica, v. 26, p. 286-298",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Hou Xian-guang, 1987, Early Cambrian large bivalved arthropods from Chengjiang, Eastern Yunnan [in Chinese]: Acta Palaeontologica Sinica, v. 26, p. 286-298.}"
}

@misc{xianguang1987three41,
    author = "Xian-guang, Hou",
    title = "Three new large arthropods from Lower Cambrian, Chengjiang, Eastern Yunnan [in Chinese]",
    year = "1987",
    howpublished = "Acta Palaeontologica Sinica, v. 26, p. 272-285",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Hou Xian-guang, 1987, Three new large arthropods from Lower Cambrian, Chengjiang, Eastern Yunnan [in Chinese]: Acta Palaeontologica Sinica, v. 26, p. 272-285.}"
}

@misc{xianguang1987two40,
    author = "Xian-guang, Hou",
    title = "Two new arthropods from Lower Cambrian, Chengjiang, Eastern Yunnan [in Chinese]",
    year = "1987",
    howpublished = "Acta Palaeontologica Sinica, v. 26, p. 236- 256",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Hou Xian-guang, 1987, Two new arthropods from Lower Cambrian, Chengjiang, Eastern Yunnan [in Chinese]: Acta Palaeontologica Sinica, v. 26, p. 236- 256.}"
}

@article{allison1988the,
    author = "Allison, Peter A.",
    title = "The role of anoxia in the decay and mineralization of proteinaceous macro-fossils",
    year = "1988",
    journal = "Paleobiology",
    abstract = "Actualistic experiments have quantified rate of anaerobic decay and associated mineralization around proteinaceous macro-organisms. Carcasses of the polychaete worm Nereis and the eumalacostracans Nephrops and Palaemon were buried in airtight glass jars filled with sediment and water from marine, brackish, and lacustrine environments. Over a period of 25 weeks the contents were examined to determine the state of decay and were chemically analyzed to monitor early diagenetic mineralization (two methods for such analysis are reviewed). Decay processes were active in the experimental conditions despite anoxia and had virtually destroyed the carcasses within 25 weeks. However, decay-rate in the sulfate-reducing marine system was greater than in the methanogenic freshwater environments. Petrological and geochemical analyses of the organic remains identified discrete layers of authigenic iron monosulfide (a pyrite precursor) on the surface of the decaying Nephrops cuticle within weeks of initiating the experiment. Chemical analysis of decomposing flesh showed a marked increase in pore-water calcium content with time. The results clearly show that anoxia is ineffective as a long-term conservation medium in the preservation of soft-bodied fossils. However, decay-induced mineralization can be very rapid so that even a slight reduction in decay rate can lead to improved levels of fossil preservation. Traditionally, stagnation and rapid burial are considered to be the main prerequisites for the preservation of soft-bodied fossils and the formation of Konservat-Lagerstätten. Clearly these factors are only important in that they promote early diagenetic mineralization. This is the only way to halt information loss through decay.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1017/s009483730001188x",
    doi = "10.1017/s009483730001188x",
    number = "2",
    openalex = "W2487864689",
    pages = "139-154",
    volume = "14",
    references = "doi1010160016703784900899, doi101017s0094837300005996, doi101017s009483730000676x, doi101098rstb19850134, doi101130001676061968791315tailif20co2, doi1015159780691209401, doi102475ajs26811, doi104319lo19842920236, doi105962bhlpart22969, doi105962bhltitle7199, openalexw2754161204, openalexw599354073, schopf1978fossilization"
}

@misc{allison1988the2,
    author = "Allison, P. A",
    title = "The role of anoxia in the decay and mineralization of proteinaceous macro-fossils",
    year = "1988",
    howpublished = "Paleobiology, v. 14, p. 139-154",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Allison, P. A., 1988, The role of anoxia in the decay and mineralization of proteinaceous macro-fossils: Paleobiology, v. 14, p. 139-154.}"
}

@misc{briggs1988a16,
    author = "Briggs, D. E. G. and Collins, D",
    title = "A Middle Cambrian chelicerate from Mount Stephan, British Columbia",
    year = "1988",
    howpublished = "Palaeontology, v. 31, p. 779-798",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Briggs, D. E. G., and Collins, D., 1988, A Middle Cambrian chelicerate from Mount Stephan, British Columbia: Palaeontology, v. 31, p. 779-798.}"
}

@misc{houxianguang1988discovery43,
    author = "Hou Xian-guang, Sun Wei-guo",
    title = "Discovery of Chengjiang fauna at Meishucun, Jinning, Yunnan [in Chinese]",
    year = "1988",
    howpublished = "Acta Palaeontologica Sinica, v. 27, p. 1-12",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Hou Xian-guang, and Sun Wei-guo, 1988, Discovery of Chengjiang fauna at Meishucun, Jinning, Yunnan [in Chinese]: Acta Palaeontologica Sinica, v. 27, p. 1-12.}"
}

@article{doi101017s0263593300028716,
    author = "Morris, Simon Conway",
    title = "The persistence of Burgess Shale-type faunas: implications for the evolution of deeper-water faunas",
    year = "1989",
    journal = "Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh",
    abstract = "ABSTRACT Discoveries, most of them recently, in more than thirty Lower and Middle Cambrian horizons with soft-bodied fossils have shown that forty-one of the genera occur also in the celebrated Burgess Shale (Middle Cambrian). Significantly, they tend to have lengthy stratigraphic durations which together encompass an interval from the early Lower Cambrian (Tommotian) to near the end of the Middle Cambrian. At least some genera have also wide geographical ranges, with occurrences around much of the Laurentian (N America) craton, and also in N and S China, Australia, Siberia, Spain and Poland. Although a few genera, e.g. Isoxys, may have been pelagic, for the most part these distributions are explained in terms of a deeper-water biota with an evolutionarily conservative aspect. Both the origins and further recruitment to this biota may have been from shallower water, with more limited in situ diversification. It is speculated that this distinctive Cambrian biota was gradually driven to extinction with the arrival of Ordovician competitors, although some relics may have survived until at least the Devonian. This history has implications for our understanding of deeper-water faunas throughout the Phanerozoic, and supports the notion that archaic forms may take refuge in this environment.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1017/s0263593300028716",
    doi = "10.1017/s0263593300028716",
    openalex = "W2315769200",
    references = "doi101017s009483730001246x, doi104095100784, openalexw2255057748"
}

@article{doi101126science2464928339,
    author = "Morris, Simon Conway",
    title = "Burgess Shale Faunas and the Cambrian Explosion",
    year = "1989",
    journal = "Science",
    abstract = {Soft-bodied marine faunas from the Lower and Middle Cambrian, exemplified by the Burgess Shale of British Columbia, are a key component in understanding the major adaptive radiations at the beginning of the Phanerozoic ("Cambrian explosion"). These faunas have a widespread distribution, and many taxa have pronounced longevity. Among the components appear to be survivors of the preceding Ediacaran assemblages and a suite of bizarre forms that give unexpected insights into morphological diversification. Microevolutionary processes, however, seem adequate to account for this radiation, and the macroevolutionary patterns that set the seal on Phanerozoic life are contingent on random extinctions. They weeded out the morphological spectrum and permitted rediversification among surviving clades. Although the predictability of which clades will play in successive acts of the Phanerozoic theater is low, at least the outlines of the underlying ecological plot are already clear from the opening of the drama.},
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1126/science.246.4928.339",
    doi = "10.1126/science.246.4928.339",
    openalex = "W2162201296",
    references = "doi1010079781475707403, doi1010160009254187901653, doi1010160301926885900518, doi101017s0094837300006539, doi101038326181a0, doi101098rstb19750033, doi101098rstb19780005, doi101098rstb19850005, doi101098rstb19850138, doi101111j150239311989tb01332x, doi101126science2164542173, doi101126science2224620163, doi101126science22246281123, doi101126science3277277, doi1011300091761319880160149mibbbs23co2, doi101146annureves10110179001551, doi101826182003741571989, dzik1988the, gingerich1987evolution, morris1979the, morris1987a, openalexw2473761340"
}

@misc{gould1989wonderful39,
    author = "Gould, S. J",
    title = "Wonderful Life",
    year = "1989",
    howpublished = "The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History: New York, W. W. Norton",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Gould, S. J., 1989, Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History: New York, W. W. Norton.}"
}

@article{doi101017s0094837300009994,
    author = "Butterfield, Nicholas J.",
    title = "Organic preservation of non-mineralizing organisms and the taphonomy of the Burgess Shale",
    year = "1990",
    journal = "Paleobiology",
    abstract = "Organic preservation of non-mineralizing animals constitutes an important part of the paleontological record, yet the processes involved have not been investigated in detail. Organic-walled fossils are generally explicable as a coincidence of original, relatively recalcitrant, extra-cellular materials and more or less anti-biotic depositional circumstances. One of the most pervasive natural inhibitors of biodegradation results from substrate and enzyme adsorption onto, and within, clay minerals; such interactions are likely responsible for many of the organic-walled fossils preserved in clastic sediments. Close examination of the fossil Lagerstätte of the Burgess Shale (Middle Cambrian, British Columbia) reveals that most of its so-called soft-bodied fossils are composed of primary (although kerogenized) organic carbon. Their preservation can be attributed to pervasive clay-organic interactions as the organisms were transported in a moving sediment cloud and buried with all cavities and spaces permeated with fine grained clays. The organic-walled Burgess Shale fossils were studied both in petrographic thin section and isolated from the rock matrix, following careful acid maceration. Isotopic analysis of bulk organic and carbonate carbon yielded values consistent with a normal marine paleoenvironment. Anatomical and histological consideration of the enigmatic Burgess worm Amiskwia suggest that it may in fact be a chaetognath, while the putative chordate Pikaia appears not to be related to modern cephalochordates.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1017/s0094837300009994",
    doi = "10.1017/s0094837300009994",
    openalex = "W2484296155",
    references = "allison1988the, doi1010079783642859168, doi1010079783642878138, doi1010079783642964466, doi1010160016703778901990, doi1010160016703781902441, doi1010160020711x85900230, doi101016c20090018339, doi101017s0022336000029905, doi101017s009483730001188x, doi101017s0094837300012082, doi101029pa003i005p00621, doi101038scientificamerican0779122, doi10108003115517908565437, doi101098rstb19850096, doi101126science2464928339, doi101130001676061968791315tailif20co2, doi101146annurevmi41100187002341, doi1015159780691220239, doi1023071484559, doi104095103458, openalexw2240758963, openalexw2598873191, openalexw2944885317, openalexw3025073342, openalexw587905045"
}

@article{doi101038361219a0,
    author = "Morris, Simon Conway",
    title = "The fossil record and the early evolution of the Metazoa",
    year = "1993",
    journal = "Nature",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1038/361219a0",
    doi = "10.1038/361219a0",
    openalex = "W2143380472",
    references = "doi101016001670379290064p, doi1010160301926885900518, doi101016030192688590066x, doi101016s0959437x05801923, doi101017cbo9780511601064002, doi101038345802a0, doi101093oso97801985771880010001, doi101111j146364091991tb00303x, doi101111j150239311989tb01332x, doi101126science1585174, doi101126science1598573, doi101126science2464928339, doi101126science3277277, doi101144gsjgs14920171, doi101144gsjgs14940607, doi1023072992562, doi105860choice273873"
}

@article{doi101126science11536548,
    author = "Labandeira, Conrad C. and Sepkoski, J. John",
    title = "Insect Diversity in the Fossil Record",
    year = "1993",
    journal = "Science",
    abstract = "Insects possess a surprisingly extensive fossil record. Compilation of the geochronologic ranges of insect families demonstrates that their diversity exceeds that of preserved vertebrate tetrapods through 91 percent of their evolutionary history. The great diversity of insects was achieved not by high origination rates but rather by low extinction rates comparable to the low rates of slowly evolving marine invertebrate groups. The great radiation of modern insects began 245 million years ago and was not accelerated by the expansion of angiosperms during the Cretaceous period. The basic trophic machinery of insects was in place nearly 100 million years before angiosperms appeared in the fossil record.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1126/science.11536548",
    doi = "10.1126/science.11536548",
    openalex = "W1984084181",
    references = "doi1010079781468491814, doi101017s0094837300003778, doi101038293435a0, doi101038303614a0, doi101086284840, doi101111j155856461964tb01674x, doi101111j155856461966tb03364x, doi101126science13334591105, doi101126science21545391501, doi101126science2314734129, doi101146annureves10110179001335, doi107312simp93764, openalexw2038423019"
}

@article{doi1011300091761319930210527efrdos23co2,
    author = "Allison, Peter A. and Briggs, Derek E. G.",
    title = "Exceptional fossil record: Distribution of soft-tissue preservation through the Phanerozoic",
    year = "1993",
    journal = "Geology",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1130/0091-7613(1993)021<0527:efrdos>2.3.co;2",
    doi = "10.1130/0091-7613(1993)021<0527:efrdos>2.3.co;2",
    openalex = "W2034614171"
}

@article{doi105860choice302690,
    title = "The biomarker guide: interpreting molecular fossils in petroleum and ancient sediments",
    year = "1993",
    journal = "Choice Reviews Online",
    abstract = "This indispensable reference provides the only comprehensive discussion of biomarkers and how they are used with other geochemical methods to reduce the risk associated with exploration for petroleum. The guide brings together information on biomarkers and related technology that is now disseminated in hundreds of research papers, and creates general guidelines for the use of selected parameters. For a broad audience including company exploration geologies, geochemists, geochemical coordinators, and managers.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.5860/choice.30-2690",
    doi = "10.5860/choice.30-2690",
    openalex = "W1578727128"
}

@article{openalexw2886616075,
    author = "Morris, Simon Conway",
    title = "Ediacaran-like fossils in Cambrian Burgess Shale-type faunas of North America",
    year = "1993",
    journal = "Biodiversity Heritage Library (Smithsonian Institution)",
    openalex = "W2886616075"
}

@book{doi1010029781444313918,
    author = "Smith, Andrew B.",
    title = "Systematics and the Fossil Record",
    year = "1994",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444313918",
    doi = "10.1002/9781444313918",
    openalex = "W4244814634"
}

@book{openalexw1573076930,
    author = "Briggs, Deg and Erwin, Douglas H. and Collier, Frederick J.",
    title = "The Fossils of the Burgess Shale",
    year = "1994",
    booktitle = "Bristol Research (University of Bristol)",
    openalex = "W1573076930"
}

@article{doi101111j150239311995tb01587x,
    author = "Butterfield, Nicholas J.",
    title = "Secular distribution of Burgess‐Shale‐type preservation",
    year = "1995",
    journal = "Lethaia",
    abstract = "Burgess-Shale-type preservation is defined as a taphonomic pathway involving the exceptional organic preservation of non-mineralizing organisms in fully marine siliciclastic sediments. In the Phanerozoic it occurs widely in Lower and Middle Cambrian sequences but subsequently disappears as a significant taphonomic mode. The hypothesis that this distribution derives solely from a secular increase in the depth of bioturbation is falsified: low bioturbation indices do not prevent the rapid enzymatic degradation of organic structure, nor do they account for the conspicuous absence of comparable preservation during the Vendian. An earlier, Late Riphean (ca. 750–850 Ma), interval of enhanced organic-walled fossil preservation suggests a long-term recurrence in Burgess-Shale-type taphonomy that is independent of metazoan activity. A model based on the potentially powerful anti-enzymatic and/or stabilizing effects of clay minerals on organic molecules is proposed to account for Burgess-Shale-type preservation. Long-term changes in average clay mineralogies and the ocean chemistry that determines their interaction with organic molecules are likely to have induced the pronounced secular distribution of these fossil biotas, while regional variations in tectonism, weathering, etc., explain their non-uniform geographic distribution; the close correlation between exceptional, organic-walled fossil preservation and volcano-genic sedimentation in Tertiary lake deposits provides a compelling analogue. Recognition of a temporal control on Burgess-Shale-type preservation constrains the evolutionary scenarios that can be drawn from such biotas; significantly, neither the initial rate of appearance, nor the ultimate fate of Burgess-Shale-type taxa can be directly assessed. □Taphonomy, exceptional preservation, organic preservation, fossil Lagerstatten, Burgess Shale, clay mineralogy, clay-organic interactions, secular change, Cambrian, Proterozoic.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1502-3931.1995.tb01587.x",
    doi = "10.1111/j.1502-3931.1995.tb01587.x",
    openalex = "W1993033956",
    references = "doi1010079783642748646, doi1010079783642859168, doi101016001174716890051x, doi1010160016703777900473, doi101017cbo9780511601064, doi101038308231a0, doi101038326181a0, doi101038335142a0, doi101038370549a0, doi10108003115517908565437, doi101098rstb19830020, doi101098rstb19850134, doi101111j146364091991tb00303x, doi101126science11539488, doi101126science2224620163, doi101130gsab49195, doi101144gslmem19900120105, doi1015159780691220239, doi10182618200374874199301, dzik1988the, morris1987a"
}

@article{doi101017s0094837300016134,
    author = "Foote, Mike and Raup, David M.",
    title = "Fossil preservation and the stratigraphic ranges of taxa",
    year = "1996",
    journal = "Paleobiology",
    abstract = "The incompleteness of the fossil record hinders the inference of evolutionary rates and patterns. Here, we derive relationships among true taxonomic durations, preservation probability, and observed taxonomic ranges. We use these relationships to estimate original distributions of taxonomic durations, preservation probability, and completeness (proportion of taxa preserved), given only the observed ranges. No data on occurrences within the ranges of taxa are required. When preservation is random and the original distribution of durations is exponential, the inference of durations, preservability, and completeness is exact. However, reasonable approximations are possible given non-exponential duration distributions and temporal and taxonomic variation in preservability. Thus, the approaches we describe have great potential in studies of taphonomy, evolutionary rates and patterns, and genealogy. Analyses of Upper Cambrian-Lower Ordovician trilobite species, Paleozoic crinoid genera, Jurassic bivalve species, and Cenozoic mammal species yield the following results: (1) The preservation probability inferred from stratigraphic ranges alone agrees with that inferred from the analysis of stratigraphic gaps when data on the latter are available. (2) Whereas median durations based on simple tabulations of observed ranges are biased by stratigraphic resolution, our estimates of median duration, extinction rate, and completeness are not biased.(3) The shorter geologic ranges of mammalian species relative to those of bivalves cannot be attributed to a difference in preservation potential. However, we cannot rule out the contribution of taxonomic practice to this difference. (4) In the groups studied, completeness (proportion of species [trilobites, bivalves, mammals] or genera [crinoids] preserved) ranges from 60\% to 90\%. The higher estimates of completeness at smaller geographic scales support previous suggestions that the incompleteness of the fossil record reflects loss of fossiliferous rock more than failure of species to enter the fossil record in the first place.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1017/s0094837300016134",
    doi = "10.1017/s0094837300016134",
    openalex = "W1936619567",
    references = "doi1010029781444313918, doi101007bf00897326, doi101017s0094837300004929, doi101017s0094837300005996, doi101017s009483730001263x, doi10106314822961, doi101126science11539488, doi1023072405671, doi107312simp93764, openalexw1522518756, openalexw2145250129, openalexw3135630760, schopf1978fossilization"
}

@article{doi10103842242,
    author = "Fedonkin, M. A. and Waggoner, Benjamin M.",
    title = "The Late Precambrian fossil Kimberella is a mollusc-like bilaterian organism",
    year = "1997",
    journal = "Nature",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1038/42242",
    doi = "10.1038/42242",
    openalex = "W1625965622",
    references = "doi101038345802a0, doi101098rstb19950029, doi105281zenodo16238847"
}

@incollection{doi10182618200376656199701,
    author = "Jensen, Sören",
    title = "Trace fossils from the Lower Cambrian Mickwitzia sandstone, south-central Sweden",
    year = "1997",
    booktitle = "Fossils and strata",
    abstract = "The Mickwitzia sandstone, south-central Sweden, consists of about 10 m of Lower Cambrian clastic sediments deposited in an epicontinental setting. An in formal, lithologically based subdivision, A-E, is introduced. A thin basal conglomerate (interval A) is followed by thin-bedded sand and siltstone with c1ayey partings (interval B and D) and medium-grained sandstone (interval C), largely representing subtidal storm deposits. Interval E consists of thick-bedded shoreface deposits. Heterolithic intervals have well-preserved trace fossils, including Cruziana, Rusophycus, Gyrolithes, Treptichnus and Teichichnus. Beds with impure, often weakly cemented sandstone (interval C) have Rhizocorallium, Monocraterion and Skolithos. Trace fossils are dominated by infaunal feeding and feeding?-dwelling burrows; 40 ichnotaxa are recognized, representing the activity of but a few types of animals. The type material of Monocraterion tentaculatum Torell, 1870, is illustrated for the first time, and the relationship of Monocraterion to Skolithos and Rosselia is discussed. Previously poorly known taxa are described. Scotolithus mirabilis Linnarsson, 1871, consists of a vertical shaft which in its lower part diverges into a wide broom-shaped arrangement. Spiroscolex spiralis (Torell, 1870) is a little-used name for burrows identical to Gyrolithes polonicus. Halopoa imbricata Torell, 1870, is a burrow related to Palaeophycus sulcatus, with a morphology dependant on sediment consistency: it is here assigned to Palaeophycus imbricatus. Fraena tenella Linnarsson, 1871, is assigned to Cruziana and considered a subjective senior synonym of Cruziana problematica. Phycodes pedum Seilacher, 1955, should be assigned to Treptichnus.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.18261/8200376656-1997-01",
    doi = "10.18261/8200376656-1997-01",
    openalex = "W4385643405",
    references = "bridge1985unusual, doi10100797814757131762, doi1010160012825283900223, doi1010160025322767900515, doi1010160031018279901123, doi1010160037073884900034, doi1010160191814182900463, doi10108003115518908527821, doi101111j136530911977tb00134x, doi101111j150239311969tb01258x, doi101111j150239311980tb00632x, doi101126science22246281123, doi10113000167606198293663hssoiv20co2, doi101139e87124, doi101306212f7e4b2b2411d78648000102c1865d, doi101306212f89c22b2411d78648000102c1865d, doi10182618200049639197506, doi10182618200093301197301, doi10182618200374254198901, doi10182618200374742199101, doi1023073514911, doi105281zenodo15992748, doi105860choice304422, openalexw2344228935, openalexw2603635224, openalexw3116078484, openalexw3126336940, openalexw353142951, openalexw574363047, roberts1982facies"
}

@article{doi101126science28153801173,
    author = "Orr, Patrick J. and Briggs, Derek E. G. and Kearns, Stuart",
    title = "Cambrian Burgess Shale Animals Replicated in Clay Minerals",
    year = "1998",
    journal = "Science",
    abstract = "Although the evolutionary importance of the Burgess Shale is universally acknowledged, there is disagreement on the mode of preservation of the fossils after burial. Elemental mapping demonstrates that the relative abundance of elements varies between different anatomical features of the specimens. These differences reflect the compositions of the minerals that replicated the decaying organism, which were controlled by contrasts in tissue chemistry. Delicate morphological details are replicated in the elemental maps, showing that authigenic mineralization was fundamental to preserving these fossils, even though some organic remains are also present.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1126/science.281.5380.1173",
    doi = "10.1126/science.281.5380.1173",
    openalex = "W2120485330",
    references = "briggs1994decay, doi1010160009254187901653, doi101016s0065211308602667, doi101017s0094837300009994, doi101098rsta19840036, doi101098rstb19950029, doi101126science27052401319, doi101139e85204, doi105860choice300309, openalexw2754161204"
}

@article{doi101111j150239311999tb00541x,
    author = "Xiao, Shuhai and Knoll, Andrew H.",
    title = "Fossil preservation in the Neoproterozoic Doushantuo phosphorite Lagerstätte, South China",
    year = "1999",
    journal = "Lethaia",
    abstract = "Phosphorites of the late Neoproterozoic Doushantuo Formation exposed in the vicinity of Weng'an, Guizhou Province, and Chadian, Shaanxi Province, South China, contain exceptionally well-preserved algal thalli, acritarchs, and globular microfossils interpreted as animal embryos. Combined optical microscopic and SEM observations provide insights into the taphonomy of phosphatized fossils. Algal cells and tissues are variably resistant to decay, and within preserved populations permineralization began at varying stages of degradation. In consequence, there is a spectrum of quality in cellular preservation. Algal cell walls, acritarch vesicles, and embryo envelopes are commonly encrusted by an isopachous rim of apatite, with cell interiors filled by collophane and later diagenetic dolomite. In contrast, blastomere surfaces of animal embryos are encrusted primarily by minute phosphatic spherules and filaments, possibly reflecting an immediately postmortem infestation of bacteria that provided nucleation sites for phosphate crystal growth. Thus, the same processes that gave rise to Phanerozoic phosphatized Lagerstatten--phosphatic encrustation, and impregnation, probably mediated by microbial activity--effected soft-tissue preservation in the Doushantuo Lagerstatte. It remains unclear how phosphatic ions and organic macromolecules interact at the molecular level and to what extent specific microbial metabolisms or microenvironmental conditions control the phosphatization of soft tissues. New observations of phosphatized Doushantuo fossils include: a second locality (Chadian) for Wengania globosa, interpreted as an algal thallus and previously known only from Weng'an; microtunnels in Weng'an phosphorites interpreted as pyrite trails; and new taxa described from Weng'an: Meghystrichosphaeridium reticulatum (acritarch), Sarcinophycus radiatus (algal thallus), and one unnamed problematic form.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1502-3931.1999.tb00541.x",
    doi = "10.1111/j.1502-3931.1999.tb00541.x",
    openalex = "W2114329528",
    references = "bengtson1976the, briggs1994decay, doi1010160301926879900226, doi101017s0022336000025567, doi101098rstb19850139, doi101111j150239311995tb01587x"
}

@article{doi101242dev1265851,
    author = "Valentine, James W. and Jablonski, David and Erwin, Douglas H.",
    title = "Fossils, molecules and embryos: new perspectives on the Cambrian explosion",
    year = "1999",
    journal = "Development",
    abstract = "The Cambrian explosion is named for the geologically sudden appearance of numerous metazoan body plans (many of living phyla) between about 530 and 520 million years ago, only 1.7\% of the duration of the fossil record of animals. Earlier indications of metazoans are found in the Neoproterozic; minute trails suggesting bilaterian activity date from about 600 million years ago. Larger and more elaborate fossil burrows appear near 543 million years ago, the beginning of the Cambrian Period. Evidence of metazoan activity in both trace and body fossils then increased during the 13 million years leading to the explosion. All living phyla may have originated by the end of the explosion. Molecular divergences among lineages leading to phyla record speciation events that have been earlier than the origins of the new body plans, which can arise many tens of millions of years after an initial branching. Various attempts to date those branchings by using molecular clocks have disagreed widely. While the timing of the evolution of the developmental systems of living metazoan body plans is still uncertain, the distribution of Hox and other developmental control genes among metazoans indicates that an extensive patterning system was in place prior to the Cambrian. However, it is likely that much genomic repatterning occurred during the Early Cambrian, involving both key control genes and regulators within their downstream cascades, as novel body plans evolved.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1242/dev.126.5.851",
    doi = "10.1242/dev.126.5.851",
    openalex = "W2164456481"
}

@article{doi1023073515467,
    author = "Labandiera, Conrad C. and Edgecombe, Gregory D.",
    title = "Arthropod Fossils and Phylogeny",
    year = "1999",
    journal = "Palaios",
    abstract = "Introduction: The Role of Extinct Taxa in Arthropod Phylogeny, by Gregory D. EdgecombeMolecular Systematics and Arthropods, by Ward WheelerAn Arthropod Phylogeny Based on Fossil and Recent Taxa, by Matthew Wills, Derek E.G. Briggs, Richard Fortey, Mark Wilkinson, Peter SneathCambrian Lobopodians: Morphology and Phylogeny, by Lars Ramskold and Chen JunyuanChengjiang Arthropods and Their Bearing on Early Arthropod Evolution, by Jan Bergstrom and Hou XianguangEarly Arthropod Phylogeny in Light of the Cambrian Orsten Fossils, by Dieter Walossek and Klaus J. MullerFossils and the Interrelationships of Major Crustacean Groups, by Frederick Schram and Cees H. J. HofFossil Taxa and Relationships of Chelicerates, by Paul Selden and Jason Dunlop",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.2307/3515467",
    doi = "10.2307/3515467",
    openalex = "W1984797044"
}

@article{doi101017s000632310000548x,
    author = "Budd, Graham E. and Jensen, Sören",
    title = "A critical reappraisal of the fossil record of the bilaterian phyla",
    year = "2000",
    journal = "Biological reviews/Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society",
    abstract = "It has long been assumed that the extant bilaterian phyla generally have their origin in the Cambrian explosion, when they appear in an essentially modern form. Both these assumptions are questionable. A strict application of stem- and crown-group concepts to phyla shows that although the branching points of many clades may have occurred in the Early Cambrian or before, the appearance of the modern body plans was in most cases later: very few bilaterian phyla sensu stricto have demonstrable representatives in the earliest Cambrian. Given that the early branching points of major clades is an inevitable result of the geometry of clade diversi®cation, the alleged phenomenon of phyla appearing early and remaining morphologically static is seen not to require particular explanation. Confusion in the de®nition of a phylum has thus led to attempts to explain (especially from a developmental perspective) a feature that is partly inevitable, partly illusory. We critically discuss models for Proterozoic diversi®cation based on small body size, limited developmental capacity and poor preservation and cryptic habits, and show that the prospect of lineage diversi®cation occurring early in the Proterozoic can be seen to be unlikely on grounds of both parsimonyand functional morphology. Indeed, the combination of the body and trace fossil record demonstrates a progressive diversi®cation through the end of the Proterozoic well into the Cambrian and beyond, a picture consistent with body plans being assembled during this time. Body-plan characters are likely to have been acquired monophyletically in the history of the bilaterians, and a model explaining the diversity in just oneof them, the coelom, is presented. This analysis points to the requirement for a careful application of systematic methodology before explanations are sought for alleged patterns of constraint and ¯fexibility.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1017/s000632310000548x",
    doi = "10.1017/s000632310000548x",
    openalex = "W2148377177",
    references = "doi101002aja1002030302, doi101002jmor1050540103, doi101017s0022336000024963, doi101017s0094837300012793, doi101017s009483730001681x, doi10103835318, doi101038361490a0, doi101038377720a0, doi101038382127a0, doi101038387489a0, doi10103846965, doi101098rstb19780005, doi101098rstb19790006, doi101098rstb19950029, doi101111j109583121996tb01693x, doi101111j109600311991tb00045x, doi101111j146363951991tb00312x, doi101111j146363951995tb00988x, doi101111j146364091991tb00303x, doi101111j1469185x1988tb00631x, doi101111j150239311975tb01311x, doi101111j150239311990tb01373x, doi101111j150239311998tb00509x, doi101126science28354091919, doi101126science28454232129, doi101126science7886451, doi101139e87124, doi101508300037918, doi101826182003741571989, doi101826182003769311997, doi1023073515360, doi1023073515362, doi1023073515363, doi105281zenodo16238847, dzik1988the, openalexw2055967869, openalexw2598873191, openalexw2754161204"
}

@article{doi101111j1469185x1999tb00046x,
    author = "Budd, Graham E. and Jensen, Sören",
    title = "A critical reappraisal of the fossil record of the bilaterian phyla",
    year = "2000",
    journal = "Biological reviews/Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society",
    abstract = "ABSTRACT It has long been assumed that the extant bilaterian phyla generally have their origin in the Cambrian explosion, when they appear in an essentially modern form. Both these assumptions are questionable. A strict application of stem‐ and crown‐group concepts to phyla shows that although the branching points of many clades may have occurred in the Early Cambrian or before, the appearance of the modern body plans was in most cases later: very few bilaterian phyla sensu stricto have demonstrable representatives in the earliest Cambrian. Given that the early branching points of major clades is an inevitable result of the geometry of clade diversification, the alleged phenomenon of phyla appearing early and remaining morphologically static is seen not to require particular explanation. Confusion in the definition of a phylum has thus led to attempts to explain (especially from a developmental perspective) a feature that is partly inevitable, partly illusory. We critically discuss models for Proterozoic diversification based on small body size, limited developmental capacity and poor preservation and cryptic habits, and show that the prospect of lineage diversification occurring early in the Proterozoic can be seen to be unlikely on grounds of both parsimony and functional morphology. Indeed, the combination of the body and trace fossil record demonstrates a progressive diversification through the end of the Proterozoic well into the Cambrian and beyond, a picture consistent with body plans being assembled during this time. Body‐plan characters are likely to have been acquired monophyletically in the history of the bilaterians, and a model explaining the diversity in just one of them, the coelom, is presented. This analysis points to the requirement for a careful application of systematic methodology before explanations are sought for alleged patterns of constraint and flexibility.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-185x.1999.tb00046.x",
    doi = "10.1111/j.1469-185x.1999.tb00046.x",
    openalex = "W4235889006",
    references = "doi101002aja1002030302, doi101002jmor1050540103, doi1010079781489928757, doi101017s0022336000024963, doi101038382127a0, doi101038387489a0, doi101098rstb19780005, doi101111j109600311991tb00045x, doi101111j146363951991tb00312x, doi101111j146363951995tb00988x, doi101111j146364091991tb00303x, doi101111j1469185x1988tb00631x, doi101111j150239311975tb01311x, doi101111j150239311998tb00509x, doi101126science16414901b, doi101126science28454232129, doi1023072530028, doi1023073223017, doi105860choice273873, doi105860choice295709, dzik1988the, openalexw2055967869, openalexw611184576"
}

@article{doi101126science2885467841,
    author = "Martin, Mark W. and Grazhdankin, Dmitriy and Bowring, Samuel A. and Evans, David A.D. and Fedonkin, M. A. and Kirschvink, Joseph L.",
    title = "Age of Neoproterozoic Bilatarian Body and Trace Fossils, White Sea, Russia: Implications for Metazoan Evolution",
    year = "2000",
    journal = "Science",
    abstract = "A uranium-lead zircon age for a volcanic ash interstratified with fossil-bearing, shallow marine siliciclastic rocks in the Zimnie Gory section of the White Sea region indicates that a diverse assemblage of body and trace fossils occurred before 555.3 +/- 0.3 million years ago. This age is a minimum for the oldest well-documented triploblastic bilaterian Kimberella. It also makes co-occurring trace fossils the oldest that are reliably dated. This determination of age implies that there is no simple relation between Ediacaran diversity and the carbon isotopic composition of Neoproterozoic seawater.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1126/science.288.5467.841",
    doi = "10.1126/science.288.5467.841",
    openalex = "W1993655526",
    references = "doi101139e87124, doi1023073515363"
}

@article{doi101029eo082i024p0026802,
    author = "Briggs, Derek E. G.",
    title = "The Ecology of the Cambrian Radiation",
    year = "2001",
    journal = "Eos",
    abstract = "The Cambrian radiation is one of the most exciting and controversial events in the fossil record. It was marked by a sudden abundance of shells, the first steep rise in plots of diversity through time, and the appearance of the fabulous soft‐bodied fossils of the Burgess Shale in British Columbia and elsewhere in the world. The Cambrian radiation was also the subject of Steve Gould's Wonderful Life and Simon Conway Morris's Crucible of Creation.. The Ecology of the Cambrian Radiation is a long‐awaited compilation that tackles one of the more impenetrable parts of the story. Interpretations of ecology are, after all, characteristically equivocal in rocks of this age.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1029/eo082i024p00268-02",
    doi = "10.1029/eo082i024p00268-02",
    openalex = "W1619317983"
}

@article{doi101144jgs1582211,
    author = "Zhang, Xingliang and Shu, Degan and Li, Yong and Han, Jian",
    title = "New sites of Chengjiang fossils: crucial windows on the Cambrian explosion",
    year = "2001",
    journal = "Journal of the Geological Society",
    abstract = "Soft-bodied and lightly sclerotized Chengjiang fossils have been found at more than ten new localities in the Lower Cambrian Qiongzhusi and Canglangpu formations of east central Yunnan. At the same time, three different fossil assemblages have been recognized, i.e. Kunmingella–Isoxys–Naraoia assemblage at Chengjiang, Kunmingella – Cricocosmia assemblage at Haikou, and Kunmingella – Wutingaspis – Obolus assemblage at Anning and Wuding. These sites yield new and striking specimens, such as a new tentacular animal, brachiopods with pedicles preserved, and the enigmatic Xidazoon (having mixed phyla characters), which are significant in our understanding of animal phylogeny. Above all, the appearance of diverse chordates and agnathans (vertebrates) greatly expands our knowledge of the Cambrian explosion. The discovery of soft-bodied fossils at many new localities and the very wide distribution of the Qiongzhusi Formation suggest that many more localities remain to be discovered. Here, a new early form of tentaculate, Cambrotentacus sanwuia gen. et sp. nov. (perhaps related to lophophorates and entoprocts), is described.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1144/jgs.158.2.211",
    doi = "10.1144/jgs.158.2.211",
    openalex = "W2151545253",
    references = "doi10103821631, doi101038326181a0, doi101038387489a0, doi10103846965, doi101073pnas9794453, doi10108003115517908565437, doi101126science7886451, doi1011300091761319940220179pcbgsr23co2, doi101826182003741571989, doi101826182003769311997, doi105860choice501469, dzik1988the, morris1987a, openalexw1573076930"
}

@article{doi1016660022336020020760347mcciat20co2,
    author = "Xiao, Shuhai and Yuan, Xunlai and Steiner, Michael and Knoll, Andrew H.",
    title = "MACROSCOPIC CARBONACEOUS COMPRESSIONS IN A TERMINAL PROTEROZOIC SHALE: A SYSTEMATIC REASSESSMENT OF THE MIAOHE BIOTA, SOUTH CHINA",
    year = "2002",
    journal = "Journal of Paleontology",
    abstract = "Carbonaceous compression fossils in shales of the uppermost Doushantuo Formation (ca. 555-590 Ma) at Miaohe in the Yangtze Gorges area provide a rare Burgess-Shale-type taphonomic window on terminal Proterozoic biology. More than 100 macrofossil species have been described from Miaohe shales, but in an examination of published and new materials, we recognize only about twenty distinct taxa, including Aggregatosphaera miaoheensis new gen. and sp. Most of these fossils can be interpreted unambiguously as colonial prokaryotes or multicellular algae. Phylogenetically derived coenocytic green algae appear to be present, as do regularly bifurcating thalli comparable to red and brown algae. At least five species have been interpreted as metazoans by previous workers. Of these, Protoconites minor and Calyptrina striata most closely resemble animal remains; either or both could be the organic sheaths of cnidarian scyphopolyps, although an algal origin cannot be ruled out for P. minor. Despite exceptional preservation, the Miaohe assemblage contains no macroscopic fossils that can be interpreted with confidence as bilaterian animals. In combination with other late Neoproterozoic and Early Cambrian body fossils and trace fossils, the Doushantuo assemblage supports the view that body-plan diversification within bilaterian phyla was largely a Cambrian event.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1666/0022-3360(2002)076<0347:mcciat>2.0.co;2",
    doi = "10.1666/0022-3360(2002)076<0347:mcciat>2.0.co;2",
    openalex = "W2056899680",
    references = "doi101007978364276884234, doi1010160301926879900226, doi101017s0022336000030663, doi101017s0094837300009994, doi10108003115517808527785, doi101111j150239311995tb01587x, doi101126science28153801173, doi101826182003741571989, doi1023073515363, openalexw2622880403"
}

@article{doi1016660094837320020280155lgatio20co2,
    author = "Butterfield, Nicholas J.",
    title = "Leanchoilia guts and the interpretation of three-dimensional structures in Burgess Shale-type fossils",
    year = "2002",
    journal = "Paleobiology",
    abstract = "The Burgess Shale arthropod Leanchoilia superlata Walcott 1912, commonly preserves a three-dimensional axial structure generally interpreted as gut contents. Thin-section examination shows this instead to be phosphatized biserially repeated midgut glands, including exceptional preservation of subcellular features. The preferential mineralization of these structures is related to their unusually high chemical reactivity and probably to an internal source of phosphate. Sub-millimetric lineations previously interpreted as annular musculature are in fact planar, sometimes radially arranged, subdivisions of these glands. Ventral rows of isolated phosphate patches appear to represent the same tissue. In extant arthropods, extensively developed midgut glands are related to a rich but infrequent diet with a primary function in storage. Their conspicuous occurrence in unambiguous fossil predators such as Sidneyia and Laggania (Anomalocaris) suggests they served a similar role in the Cambrian; by extension, their conspicuous occurrence in Leanchoilia suggests it was a predator or scavenger. Phosphatized midguts with a structure essentially indistinguishable from that of Leanchoilia are also found in Burgess Shale Odaraia, Canadaspis, Perspicaris, Sidneyia, Anomalocaris, and Opabinia. All are characterized by a distinctive sub-millimetric arrangement of planar elements that is not found in extant arthropods or trilobites, suggesting they diverged before the last common ancestor of extant forms; i.e., they represent stem-group arthropods. Three-dimensionally preserved guts are widely preserved in the Lower Cambrian Chengjiang biota but, unlike those in the Burgess Shale, appear to be filled with sediment. Although generally interpreted as evidence of deposit feeding, the form of these structures points to early permineralization of (sediment-free) midgut glands that were subsequently altered to clay minerals. There is no evidence of deposit feeding in the Chengjiang; indeed, there is a case to be made for deposit feeding not being generally exploited generally until after the Cambrian. Fossils with three-dimensionally preserved axes from the Lower Cambrian Sirius Passet biota have been interpreted as lobopodians; however, most of the putative lobopodian features find alternative interpretations as aspects of Leanchoilia -type midgut glands. Although Kerygmachela is reliably identified as a stem-group arthropod, its phylogenetic position remains unresolved owing to the non-preservation of critical external features and to the plesiomorphic nature of its Leanchoilia -type midgut.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1666/0094-8373(2002)028<0155:lgatio>2.0.co;2",
    doi = "10.1666/0094-8373(2002)028<0155:lgatio>2.0.co;2",
    openalex = "W2175470899",
    references = "doi1010079789401149044, doi101017s002233600002758x, doi10103708944105154544, doi101038001534a0, doi101038114085a0, doi10103835318, doi10103846965, doi101086284623, doi101086415511, doi101098rstb19750033, doi101098rstb19780005, doi101098rstb19810007, doi101098rstb19810164, doi101098rstb19830020, doi101098rstb19850096, doi101111j150239311995tb01587x, doi101126science28153801173, doi101826182003769311997, doi104095103458, doi105281zenodo15992748, müller1983crustacea, openalexw2242001249, openalexw3127114020, openalexw659399033, xianguang1999new"
}

@article{briggs2003the,
    author = "Briggs, Derek E.G.",
    title = "The Role of Decay and Mineralization in the Preservation of Soft-Bodied Fossils",
    year = "2003",
    journal = "Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences",
    abstract = "▪ Abstract Fossil deposits that preserve soft-bodied organisms provide critical evidence of the history of life. Usually, only more decay resistant materials, e.g., cuticles, survive as organic remains as a result of selective preservation and subsequent diagenesis to more resistant biopolymers. Permineralization, the permeation of tissues by mineralizing fluids, may preserve remarkable detail, particularly of plants. However, evidence of more labile tissues, e.g., muscle, normally requires the replication of their morphology by rapid in situ growth of minerals, i.e., authigenic mineralization. This process relies on the steep geochemical gradients generated by decay microbes. The minerals involved, and the level of detail preserved (which may be subcellular), depend on a number of factors, including the nature of microbial activity and amount of decay, availability of ions, and the type of organism that is fossilized. Understanding these controls is essential to determining the conditions that favor exceptional preservation.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.earth.31.100901.144746",
    doi = "10.1146/annurev.earth.31.100901.144746",
    number = "1",
    openalex = "W2125375419",
    pages = "275-301",
    volume = "31",
    references = "allison1988the, briggs1994decay, briggs1996the, doi1010160016703789901919, doi1010160016703794902984, doi101016002532279390147n, doi1010160034666775900056, doi101017s0006323199005472, doi101017s0022336000040026, doi101017s0094837300009994, doi101017s009483730001188x, doi101017s0094837300012082, doi101098rstb19790006, doi101098rstb19850134, doi101098rstb19930082, doi101111j150239311983tb01993x, doi101126science25951001439, doi101126science28153801173, doi1011300091761319880160149mibbbs23co2, doi1015159781501509247, doi1016660094837320020280155lgatio20co2, doi1023071222284, doi1023073515360, doi1023073515363, doi105860choice284524, doi107208chicago97802261597130010001, openalexw2754161204"
}

@book{doi1010079781461501619,
    author = "Kelley, Patricia H. and Kowalewski, Michał and Hansen, Thor A.",
    title = "Predator—Prey Interactions in the Fossil Record",
    year = "2003",
    booktitle = "Topics in geobiology",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-0161-9",
    doi = "10.1007/978-1-4615-0161-9",
    openalex = "W359589855"
}

@article{doi101093icb431166,
    author = "Butterfield, Nicholas J.",
    title = "Exceptional Fossil Preservation and the Cambrian Explosion",
    year = "2003",
    journal = "Integrative and Comparative Biology",
    abstract = {Exceptionally preserved, non-biomineralizing fossils contribute importantly to resolving details of the Cambrian explosion, but little to its overall patterns. Six distinct "types" of exceptional preservation are identified for the terminal Proterozoic-Cambrian interval, each of which is dependent on particular taphonomic circumstances, typically restricted both in space and time. Taphonomic pathways yielding exceptional preservation were particularly variable through the Proterozoic-Cambrian transition, at least in part a consequence of contemporaneous evolutionary innovations. Combined with the reasonably continuous record of "Doushantuo-type preservation," and the fundamentally more robust records of shelly fossils, phytoplankton cysts and trace fossils, these taphonomic perturbations contribute to the documentation of major evolutionary and biogeochemical shifts through the terminal Proterozoic and early Cambrian.Appreciation of the relationship between taphonomic pathway and fossil expression serves as a useful tool for interpreting exceptionally preserved, often problematic, early Cambrian fossils. In shale facies, for example, flattened non-biomineralizing structures typically represent the remains of degradation-resistant acellular and extracellular "tissues" such as chaetae and cuticles, whereas three-dimensional preservation represents labile cellular tissues with a propensity for attracting and precipitating early diagenetic minerals. Such distinction helps to identify the acuticular integument of hyolithids, the chaetae-like nature of Wiwaxia sclerites, the chaetognath-like integument of Amiskwia, the midgut glands of various Burgess Shale arthropods, and the misidentification of deposit-feeding arthropods in the Chengjiang biota. By the same reasoning, putative lobopods in the Sirius Passet biota and putative deuterostomes in the Chengiang biota are better interpreted as arthropods.},
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1093/icb/43.1.166",
    doi = "10.1093/icb/43.1.166",
    openalex = "W2181027699",
    references = "doi1010160016703789901919, doi101017s000632310000548x, doi101017s0094837300009994, doi101017s0094837300012082, doi10103834391, doi10103835318, doi101098rstb19790006, doi101098rstb19850005, doi101111j1469185x1999tb00046x, doi101111j150239311975tb01311x, doi101111j150239311994tb01558x, doi101111j150239311995tb01587x, doi101111j150239311995tb01591x, doi101126science1066611, doi101126science28153801173, doi1016660094837320000260386bpngns20co2, doi1016660094837320020280155lgatio20co2, doi1023073514743, doi1023073515360, openalexw2326083785, openalexw2754161204, openalexw3127114020, openalexw659399033"
}

@article{doi105860choice416546,
    title = "The Cambrian fossils of Chengjiang, China: the flowering of early animal life",
    year = "2004",
    journal = "Choice Reviews Online",
    abstract = "Foreword.Preface.Part I: Geological And Evolutionary Setting of The Biota.1. Geological Time And The Evolution Of Early Life On Earth.2. The Evolutionary Significance Of The Chengjiang Biota.3. The Discovery And Initial Study Of The Chengjiang Lagerstatte.4. The Distribution And Geological Setting Of The Chengjiang Lagerstatte.5. The Taphonomy And Preservation Of The Chengjiang Fossils.6. The Paleoecology Of The Chengjiang Biota.Part II: Chengjiang Fossils.7. Algae.8. Phylum Porifera.9. Phylum Cnidaria.10. Phylum Ctenophora.11. Phylum Nematomorpha.12. Phylum Priapulida.13. Phylum Hyolitha.14. Phylum Lobopodia.15. Anomalocarididae (Phylum Uncertain).16. Phylum Arthropoda.17. Phylum Brachiopoda.18. Phylum? Vetulicolia.19. Phylum Chordata.20. Enigmatic Animals.21. Species Recorded From The Chengjiang Biota.References.Index",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.5860/choice.41-6546",
    doi = "10.5860/choice.41-6546",
    openalex = "W1529107977"
}

@article{doi10108000241160600787890,
    author = "Bertling, Markus and Braddy, Simon J. and Bromley, Richard G. and Demathieu, Georges and Genise, Jorge F. and Mikuláš, Radek and Nielsen, Jan Kresten and Nielsen, Kurt Søren Svensson and Rindsberg, Andrew K. and Schlirf, Michael and Uchman, Alfred",
    title = "Names for trace fossils: a uniform approach",
    year = "2006",
    journal = "Lethaia",
    abstract = "The taxonomic treatment of trace fossils needs a uniform approach, independent of the ethologic groups concerned. To this aim, trace fossils are rigorously defined with regard to biological taxa and physical sedimentary structures. Potential ichnotaxobases are evaluated, with morphology resulting as the most important criterion. For trace fossils related to bioerosion and herbivory, substrate plays a key role, as well as composition for coprolites. Size, producer, age, facies and preservation are rejected as ichnotaxobases. Separate names for undertracks and other poorly preserved material should gradually be replaced by ichnotaxa based on well-preserved specimens. Recent traces may be identified using established trace fossil taxa but new names can only be based on fossil material, even if the distinction between recent and fossil may frequently remain arbitrary. It is stressed that ichnotaxa must not be incorporated into biological taxa in systematics. Composite trace fossil structures (complex structures made by the combined activity of two or more species) have no ichnotaxonomic standing but compound traces (complex structures made by one individual tracemaker) may be named separately under certain provisions. The following emendations are proposed to the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature: The term ‘work of an animal’ should be deleted from the code, and ichnotaxa should be based solely on trace fossils as defined herein.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1080/00241160600787890",
    doi = "10.1080/00241160600787890",
    openalex = "W2029068730",
    references = "doi101007978140203609529, doi1010079781489928757, doi101007978364265923210, doi1010160012825272900724, doi10108010420949409386386, doi101111j136531211991tb00851x, doi101144gslsp20042280106, doi105860choice322751, openalexw1494869040, openalexw2108311936, openalexw2344228935, openalexw384818744, openalexw560158229"
}

@article{doi102110palo2003p05070r,
    author = "Caron, Jean‐Bernard and Jackson, Donald A.",
    title = "TAPHONOMY OF THE GREATER PHYLLOPOD BED COMMUNITY, BURGESS SHALE",
    year = "2006",
    journal = "Palaios",
    abstract = "Abstract The degree to which the original community composition of the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale was altered through transport and decay and how taphonomic conditions varied through time and across taxa is poorly understood. To address these issues, variation in fossil preservation was analyzed through a vertical succession of 26 bed assemblages, each representing a single obrution event, within the 7-m-thick Greater Phyllopod Bed of the Walcott Quarry. More than 50,000 specimens belonging to 158 genera—mostly benthic, monospecific and nonbiomineralized—were included in this analysis. The decay gradient of the polychaete Burgessochaeta setigera was used as a taphonomic threshold to estimate how far decay had proceeded in each bed assemblage. Qualitative comparisons of the degree of preservation of 15 species, representing an array of different body plans, demonstrate that all bed assemblages contain a mix of articulated and in situ dissociated or completely dissociated organisms interpreted respectively as census- and time-averaged assemblages. Furthermore: (1) most organisms studied were preserved within their habitat and only slightly disturbed during burial; (2) most decay processes took place prior to burial and resulted in disarticulation of organisms at the time of burial; (3) the degree of disarticulation was variable within individuals of the same population and between populations; and (4) early mineralization of tissues across all body plans occurred soon after burial. Canonical correspondence analysis summarizes the apparent variations in the amount of preburial decay, or time averaging, across species, individuals, and bed assemblages. The effect of time averaging, however, must have been limited because rarefaction curves reveal no link between decay and species richness. This suggests that decay is not an important community controlling factor. Overall, our data suggest that transport was trivial and the traditional distinction between a pre- and postslide environment is unnecessary. It is likely that all specimens present at the time of burial would have been preserved independent of their original tissue composition and degree of preburial decay. The presence of extensive sheets of Morania confluens, a putative benthic cyanobacterium, in most bed assemblages suggests that it: (1) provided a stable substrate and food source for a number of benthic metazoans, and (2) played a possible role in the preservation of nonbiomineralized animals, acting as a barrier in maintaining local anoxic pore-water conditions.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.2110/palo.2003.p05-070r",
    doi = "10.2110/palo.2003.p05-070r",
    openalex = "W2112215208",
    references = "doi101016jpalaeo200303001, doi101017cbo9780511623332, doi101038114085a0, doi101038scientificamerican0779122, doi101086282541, doi101098rstb19810164, doi1011300091761319950231079isbapo23co2, doi1023071934145, doi1023071938672, doi1023071940179, doi105860choice273873, openalexw1579996152, openalexw1587627133, openalexw2764433274"
}

@article{doi101016jpalaeo200703046,
    author = "Steiner, Michael and Li, Guoxiang and Qian, Yi and Zhu, Maoyan and Erdtmann, Bernd-Dietrich",
    title = "Neoproterozoic to Early Cambrian small shelly fossil assemblages and a revised biostratigraphic correlation of the Yangtze Platform (China)",
    year = "2007",
    journal = "Palaeogeography Palaeoclimatology Palaeoecology",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.palaeo.2007.03.046",
    doi = "10.1016/j.palaeo.2007.03.046",
    openalex = "W2057260077",
    references = "brasier1987microfossils, doi101017s0016756800007603, doi101017s0022336000036465, doi10103835318, doi10108008120099608728282, doi101111j14754983200500484x, doi101111j150239311988tb02083x, doi101126science11539488, doi101126science2795352879, doi1011300091761319940220179pcbgsr23co2, doi1011300091761319950230407scirpo23co2, doi1011300091761320030310431eocana20co2, doi101144gsjgs13130289, doi1016660022336020020760347mcciat20co2, doi1016660094837320000260334cmitsr20co2, doi101826182003741571989, doi10182618200376656199701, openalexw2473761340, openalexw566083668"
}

@article{doi101111j14754983200700656x,
    author = "Butterfield, Nicholas J. and Balthasar, Uwe and WILSON, LUCY A.",
    title = "FOSSIL DIAGENESIS IN THE BURGESS SHALE",
    year = "2007",
    journal = "Palaeontology",
    abstract = "Abstract: Current models for the exceptional preservation of Burgess Shale fossils have focused on either the HF‐extractable carbonaceous compressions or the mineral films identified by elemental mapping. BSEM, EDX and microprobe analysis of two‐dimensionally preserved Marpolia, Wiwaxia and Burgessia identifies the presence of both carbonaceous and aluminosilicate films for most features, irrespective of original lability. In the light of the deep burial and greenschist facies metamorphism documented for the Burgess Shale, the aluminosilicate films are identified as products of late‐stage volatilization and coincident mineralization of pre‐existing compression fossils, whereas the three‐dimensionally preserved gut‐caecal system of Burgessia is interpreted as an aluminosilicate replacement of a pre‐existing carbonate phase. The case for late diagenetic emplacement of aluminosilicate minerals is supported by the extensive aluminosilicification of trilobite shell and (originally) calcareous veinlets in the Burgess Shale, as well as documentation of other secondarily aluminosilicified compression fossils. By distinguishing late diagenetic alteration from the early diagenetic processes responsible for exceptional preservation, it is possible to reconcile the range of preservational modes currently expressed in the Burgess Shale.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-4983.2007.00656.x",
    doi = "10.1111/j.1475-4983.2007.00656.x",
    openalex = "W2035625131",
    references = "briggs1994decay, doi1010079783642878138, doi101016jpalaeo200407034, doi101017s0094837300009994, doi101093icb431166, doi101111j150239311995tb01587x, doi101126science28153801173, doi101130g206401, doi1016660094837320020280155lgatio20co2, doi105281zenodo15992748, doi105860choice284524, openalexw3127114020"
}

@article{doi101371journalpone0001121,
    author = "Cartwright, Paulyn and Halgedahl, Susan L. and Hendricks, Jonathan R. and Jarrard, Richard D. and Marques, António Carlos and Collins, Allen G. and Lieberman, Bruce S.",
    title = "Exceptionally Preserved Jellyfishes from the Middle Cambrian",
    year = "2007",
    journal = "PLoS ONE",
    abstract = "Cnidarians represent an early diverging animal group and thus insight into their origin and diversification is key to understanding metazoan evolution. Further, cnidarian jellyfish comprise an important component of modern marine planktonic ecosystems. Here we report on exceptionally preserved cnidarian jellyfish fossils from the Middle Cambrian (approximately 505 million years old) Marjum Formation of Utah. These are the first described Cambrian jellyfish fossils to display exquisite preservation of soft part anatomy including detailed features of structures interpreted as trailing tentacles and subumbrellar and exumbrellar surfaces. If the interpretation of these preserved characters is correct, their presence is diagnostic of modern jellyfish taxa. These new discoveries may provide insight into the scope of cnidarian diversity shortly after the Cambrian radiation, and would reinforce the notion that important taxonomic components of the modern planktonic realm were in place by the Cambrian period.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0001121",
    doi = "10.1371/journal.pone.0001121",
    openalex = "W2096583299",
    references = "doi101016jpalaeo200407034, doi101038nature03158, doi101111j150239311988tb02083x, doi101111j174474102004tb00139x, doi101126science1091946, doi101126science1139158, doi1011300091761319950231079isbapo23co2, doi101146annurevearth33092203122519, doi1023072992562, doi105281zenodo16238847, doi105860choice416546, hughes2000late, openalexw3127114020, openalexw587905045"
}

@article{doi101073pnas0802597105,
    author = "Alroy, John",
    title = "Dynamics of origination and extinction in the marine fossil record",
    year = "2008",
    journal = "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences",
    abstract = "The discipline-wide effort to database the fossil record at the occurrence level has made it possible to estimate marine invertebrate extinction and origination rates with much greater accuracy. The new data show that two biotic mechanisms have hastened recoveries from mass extinctions and confined diversity to a relatively narrow range over the past 500 million years (Myr). First, a drop in diversity of any size correlates with low extinction rates immediately afterward, so much so that extinction would almost come to a halt if diversity dropped by 90\%. Second, very high extinction rates are followed by equally high origination rates. The two relationships predict that the rebound from the current mass extinction will take at least 10 Myr, and perhaps 40 Myr if it rivals the Permo-Triassic catastrophe. Regardless, any large event will result in a dramatic ecological and taxonomic restructuring of the biosphere. The data also confirm that extinction and origination rates both declined through the Phanerozoic and that several extinctions in addition to the Permo-Triassic event were particularly severe. However, the trend may be driven by taxonomic biases and the rates vary in accord with a simple log normal distribution, so there is no sharp distinction between background and mass extinctions. Furthermore, the lack of any significant autocorrelation in the data is inconsistent with macroevolutionary theories of periodicity or self-organized criticality.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0802597105",
    doi = "10.1073/pnas.0802597105",
    openalex = "W2075331526",
    references = "doi101017s0094837300003778, doi101017s0094837300004917, doi101017s0094837300006539, doi101073pnas111144698, doi101073pnas813801, doi101126science1156963, doi101666009483731999251mditer20co2, doi1016660094837320040300522oeamdo20co2, doi1016660094837320050310006poaeit20co2"
}

@article{doi101130g24961a1,
    author = "Gaines, Robert R. and Briggs, Derek E. G. and Yuanlong, Zhao",
    title = "Cambrian Burgess Shale–type deposits share a common mode of fossilization",
    year = "2008",
    journal = "Geology",
    abstract = "Although Cambrian Burgess Shale–type (BST) biotas are fundamental to understanding the radiation of metazoans, the nature of their extraordinary preservation remains controversial. There remains disagreement about the importance of the role of early mineral replication of soft tissues versus the conservation of primary organic remains. Most prior work focused on soft-bodied fossils from the two most important BST biotas, those of the Burgess Shale (Canada) and Maotianshan Shale (Chengjiang, China). Fossils from these two deposits do not provide ideal candidates for specimen-level taphonomic study because they have been altered: the Burgess Shale by greenschist facies metamorphism and the Maotianshan Shale by intensive subsurface weathering. Elemental mapping of soft-bodied fossils from 11 other BST deposits worldwide demonstrates that BST preservation represents a single major taphonomic pathway that may share a common cause wherever it occurs. The conservation of organic tissues, and not early authigenic mineralization, is the primary mechanism responsible for the preservation of BST assemblages. Early authigenic mineral replacement preserves certain anatomical features of some specimens, but the preservation of non-biomineralized BST fossils requires suppression of the processes that normally lead to the degradation of organic remains in marine environments.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1130/g24961a.1",
    doi = "10.1130/g24961a.1",
    openalex = "W2162666312",
    references = "briggs2003the, doi101016jchemgeo200409003, doi101016jpalaeo200306001, doi101016jpalaeo200407034, doi101017s0094837300009994, doi101038114085a0, doi101093icb431166, doi101098rstb19810007, doi101111j14754983200700656x, doi101111j150239311995tb01587x, doi101126science28153801173, doi101130g206401, doi101139e06012, doi1016660094837320020280155lgatio20co2, doi102517prpsj771, openalexw2527820321, openalexw2912219260, openalexw3127114020"
}

@article{doi101371journalpbio0060102,
    author = "Dunne, Jennifer A. and Williams, Richard J. and Martinez, Neo D. and Wood, Rachel and Erwin, Douglas H.",
    title = "Compilation and Network Analyses of Cambrian Food Webs",
    year = "2008",
    journal = "PLoS Biology",
    abstract = {A rich body of empirically grounded theory has developed about food webs--the networks of feeding relationships among species within habitats. However, detailed food-web data and analyses are lacking for ancient ecosystems, largely because of the low resolution of taxa coupled with uncertain and incomplete information about feeding interactions. These impediments appear insurmountable for most fossil assemblages; however, a few assemblages with excellent soft-body preservation across trophic levels are candidates for food-web data compilation and topological analysis. Here we present plausible, detailed food webs for the Chengjiang and Burgess Shale assemblages from the Cambrian Period. Analyses of degree distributions and other structural network properties, including sensitivity analyses of the effects of uncertainty associated with Cambrian diet designations, suggest that these early Paleozoic communities share remarkably similar topology with modern food webs. Observed regularities reflect a systematic dependence of structure on the numbers of taxa and links in a web. Most aspects of Cambrian food-web structure are well-characterized by a simple "niche model," which was developed for modern food webs and takes into account this scale dependence. However, a few aspects of topology differ between the ancient and recent webs: longer path lengths between species and more species in feeding loops in the earlier Chengjiang web, and higher variability in the number of links per species for both Cambrian webs. Our results are relatively insensitive to the exclusion of low-certainty or random links. The many similarities between Cambrian and recent food webs point toward surprisingly strong and enduring constraints on the organization of complex feeding interactions among metazoan species. The few differences could reflect a transition to more strongly integrated and constrained trophic organization within ecosystems following the rapid diversification of species, body plans, and trophic roles during the Cambrian radiation. More research is needed to explore the generality of food-web structure through deep time and across habitats, especially to investigate potential mechanisms that could give rise to similar structure, as well as any differences.},
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.0060102",
    doi = "10.1371/journal.pbio.0060102",
    openalex = "W1986606765",
    references = "doi101093icb431166, doi101098rspb20063761, doi1016660094837320020280155lgatio20co2, doi105860choice416546"
}

@article{doi105860choice456807,
    title = "Trace fossils concepts, problems, prospects",
    year = "2008",
    journal = "Choice Reviews Online",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.5860/choice.45-6807",
    doi = "10.5860/choice.45-6807",
    openalex = "W631439509"
}

@article{doi101038nature07673,
    author = "Love, Gordon D. and Grosjean, Emmanuelle and Stalvies, Charlotte and Fike, David A. and Grotzinger, J. P. and Bradley, Alexander S. and Kelly, Amy E. and Bhatia, Maya P. and Meredith, William and Snape, Colin E. and Bowring, Samuel A. and Condon, Daniel J. and Summons, Roger E.",
    title = "Fossil steroids record the appearance of Demospongiae during the Cryogenian period",
    year = "2009",
    journal = "Nature",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1038/nature07673",
    doi = "10.1038/nature07673",
    openalex = "W2016049452",
    references = "doi1010160146638086900896, doi101016s0301926899000728, doi10103835318, doi101038nature05345, doi101038nature05682, doi101073pnas0708336105, doi101126science1107765, doi1011300091761320030310431eocana20co2, doi101130b256301, doi10247510200701"
}

@article{doi101111j14754983200900914x,
    author = "García‐Bellido, Diego C. and Paterson, John R. and Edgecombe, Gregory D. and Jago, J. B. and Gehlîng, James G. and Lee, Michael S. Y.",
    title = "The bivalved arthropods Isoxys and Tuzoia with soft‐part preservation from the Lower Cambrian Emu Bay Shale Lagerstätte (Kangaroo Island, Australia)",
    year = "2009",
    journal = "Palaeontology",
    abstract = "Abstract: Abundant material from a new quarry excavated in the lower Cambrian Emu Bay Shale (Kangaroo Island, South Australia) and, particularly, the preservation of soft‐bodied features previously unknown from this Burgess Shale‐type locality, permit the revision of two bivalved arthropod taxa described in the late 1970s, Isoxys communis and Tuzoia australis. The collections have also produced fossils belonging to two new species: Isoxys glaessneri and Tuzoia sp. Among the soft parts preserved in these taxa are stalked eyes, digestive structures and cephalic and trunk appendages, rivalling in quality and quantity those described from better‐known Lagerstätten, notably the lower Cambrian Chengjiang fauna of China and the middle Cambrian Burgess Shale of Canada.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-4983.2009.00914.x",
    doi = "10.1111/j.1475-4983.2009.00914.x",
    openalex = "W2008588765",
    references = "doi10100797894017363743, doi101016003101829390065q, doi101016jpalwor200610014, doi101080002411600750053862, doi10108003115517908565437, doi101111j14754983200700649x, doi1016660022336020030770674ansftp20co2, doi1016660094837320020280155lgatio20co2, doi101666pleo050701, doi101826182003769311997, doi104202app20080110, doi104202app20090024, doi105860choice416546, doi105962bhltitle14915, openalexw1573076930, openalexw3127114020"
}

@article{doi103140bullgeosci1158,
    author = "Peel, John S. and Stein, Martin",
    title = "A new arthropod from the lower Cambrian Sirius Passet Fossil-Lagerstätte of North Greenland",
    year = "2009",
    journal = "Bulletin of Geosciences",
    abstract = "Aaveqaspis inesoni gen. et sp. nov., is described from the lower Cambrian Sirius Passet Fossil-Lagersttte of Peary Land, North Greenland. It has a semicircular head shield and a thorax with 5 tergites. The tail shield carries 2 pairs of spines, the most anterior of which is enormous and dominates the trunk. A. inesoni lacks any preserved trace of eyes, as is also the case with several other Sirius Passet arthropods, suggesting that the fossils accumulated in deeper water than the contemporaneous Chengjiang Fossil-Lagersttte of China or the middle Cambrian Burgess Shale assemblages of British Columbia.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.3140/bull.geosci.1158",
    doi = "10.3140/bull.geosci.1158",
    openalex = "W1997437553",
    references = "doi1010079789401149044, doi101016jpalaeo200401022, doi101016jpalwor200610016, doi101038326181a0, doi101038345802a0, doi101098rstb19950029, doi101111j10963642200900562x, doi101826182003769311997, doi105860choice416546, openalexw2134978213"
}

@article{doi101038nature08745,
    author = "Sansom, Robert S. and Gabbott, Sarah E. and Purnell, Mark A.",
    title = "Non-random decay of chordate characters causes bias in fossil interpretation",
    year = "2010",
    journal = "Nature",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1038/nature08745",
    doi = "10.1038/nature08745",
    openalex = "W1980460712",
    references = "briggs2003the, doi101016jtree200504008, doi101016s0016703799000873, doi101017s0094837300009994, doi101038nature04336, doi101093icb431166, doi1010970000044619570500000033, doi101098rstb20072246, doi101111j146364091997tb00412x, doi101130g24961a1, doi101666061301"
}

@article{doi10166609102r1,
    author = "Peel, John S.",
    title = "A corset-like fossil from the Cambrian Sirius Passet Lagerstätte of North Greenland and its implications for cycloneuralian evolution",
    year = "2010",
    journal = "Journal of Paleontology",
    abstract = "A large (maximum length 80 mm), tubular, corset-like problematic fossil from the early Cambrian (Cambrian Series 2, Stage 3) Sirius Passet Lagerstätte of North Greenland is interpreted as the lorica of an ancestral loriciferan. in addition to the double circlet of 7 plates composing the lorica, Sirilorica carlsbergi new genus, new species also preserves up to six multicuspidate cuticular denticles that are similar in shape to the pharyngeal teeth of priapulid worms, although their location is suggestive of scalids. Whilst traditionally placed as a sister group of priapulid worms within Vinctiplicata (Scalidophora), recent molecular sequence data suggest that loriciferans might be more closely related to nematomorphs. the limited morphological information available from Sirilorica is consistent with this interpretation, placing the Sirius Passet fossil within the total-group of Loricifera, within the Loricifera + Nematomorpha clade.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1666/09-102r.1",
    doi = "10.1666/09-102r.1",
    openalex = "W2183215803",
    references = "doi1010079789401149044, doi101017cbo9781139567411, doi101029eo082i024p0026802, doi101038114085a0, doi101038387489a0, doi101046j13652109200300819x, doi10108003115519508619270, doi101098rstb19950029, doi1011111475498300229, doi103140bullgeosci1158, doi105860choice416546, openalexw2134978213"
}

@article{doi103140bullgeosci1207,
    author = "Peel, John S.",
    title = "Articulated hyoliths and other fossils from the Sirius Passet Lagerstätte (early Cambrian) of North Greenland",
    year = "2010",
    journal = "Bulletin of Geosciences",
    abstract = "Articulated hyoliths and other fossils from the Sirius Passet Lagerstätte (early Cambrian) of North Greenland",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.3140/bull.geosci.1207",
    doi = "10.3140/bull.geosci.1207",
    openalex = "W1968148086",
    references = "doi1010079789401149044, doi101038326181a0, doi101038345802a0, doi101098rstb19950029, doi101111j143904691983tb00285x, doi101111j14754983200900914x, doi101126science1137187, doi103140bullgeosci1158, doi104202app20080110, doi105860choice416546, openalexw2134978213"
}

@article{doi104202app20090058,
    author = "Morris, Simon Conway and Peel, John S.",
    title = "New Palaeoscolecidan Worms from the Lower Cambrian: Sirius Passet, Latham Shale and Kinzers Shale",
    year = "2010",
    journal = "Acta Palaeontologica Polonica",
    abstract = "Palaeoscolecidan worms are an important component of many Lower Palaeozoic marine assemblages, with notable occurrences in a number of Burgess Shale-type Fossil-Lagersttten. In addition to material from the lower Cambrian Kinzers Formation and Latham Shale, we also describe two new palaeoscolecidan taxa from the lower Cambrian Sirius Passet Fossil-Lagersttte of North Greenland: Chalazoscolex pharkus gen. et sp. nov and Xystoscolex boreogyrus gen. et sp. nov. These palaeoscolecidans appear to be the oldest known (Cambrian Series 2, Stage 3) soft-bodied examples, being somewhat older than the diverse assemblages from the Chengjiang Fossil-Lagersttte of China. In the Sirius Passet taxa the body is composed of a spinose introvert (or proboscis), trunk with ornamentation that includes regions bearing cuticular ridges and sclerites, and a caudal zone with prominent circles of sclerites. The taxa are evidently quite closely related; generic differentiation is based on degree of trunk ornamentation, details of introvert structure and nature of the caudal region. The worms were probably infaunal or semi-epifaunal; gut contents suggest that at least X. boreogyrus may have preyed on the arthropod Isoxys.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.4202/app.2009.0058",
    doi = "10.4202/app.2009.0058",
    openalex = "W2049746512",
    references = "doi101016jpalwor200610016, doi101038326181a0, doi101038387489a0, doi101038nature06614, doi101098rstb19950029, doi1011111475498300229, doi101130gsab49195, doi103140bullgeosci1158, doi104202app20080110, doi105860choice416546, doi107312zhur10612, openalexw2134978213"
}

@article{doi101073pnas1102543108,
    author = "Morlon, Hélène and Parsons, Todd L. and Plotkin, Joshua B.",
    title = "Reconciling molecular phylogenies with the fossil record",
    year = "2011",
    journal = "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences",
    abstract = "Historical patterns of species diversity inferred from phylogenies typically contradict the direct evidence found in the fossil record. According to the fossil record, species frequently go extinct, and many clades experience periods of dramatic diversity loss. However, most analyses of molecular phylogenies fail to identify any periods of declining diversity, and they typically infer low levels of extinction. This striking inconsistency between phylogenies and fossils limits our understanding of macroevolution, and it undermines our confidence in phylogenetic inference. Here, we show that realistic extinction rates and diversity trajectories can be inferred from molecular phylogenies. To make this inference, we derive an analytic expression for the likelihood of a phylogeny that accommodates scenarios of declining diversity, time-variable rates, and incomplete sampling; we show that this likelihood expression reliably detects periods of diversity loss using simulation. We then study the cetaceans (whales, dolphins, and porpoises), a group for which standard phylogenetic inferences are strikingly inconsistent with fossil data. When the cetacean phylogeny is considered as a whole, recently radiating clades, such as the Balaneopteridae, Delphinidae, Phocoenidae, and Ziphiidae, mask the signal of extinctions. However, when isolating these groups, we infer diversity dynamics that are consistent with the fossil record. These results reconcile molecular phylogenies with fossil data, and they suggest that most extant cetaceans arose from four recent radiations, with a few additional species arising from clades that have been in decline over the last \textasciitilde 10 Myr.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1102543108",
    doi = "10.1073/pnas.1102543108",
    openalex = "W2133436664",
    references = "doi101126science1189910"
}

@article{doi101080147720192011566634,
    author = "Stein, Martin and Selden, Paul A.",
    title = "A restudy of the Burgess Shale (Cambrian) arthropod Emeraldella brocki and reassessment of its affinities",
    year = "2011",
    journal = "Journal of Systematic Palaeontology",
    abstract = "A restudy of the Burgess Shale arthropod Emeraldella brocki suggests novel interpretations of its morphology. We show that the morphology is more plesiomorphic than previously assumed, particularly regarding tagmosis. The cephalon probably only incorporates three limb-bearing postantennular segments. The trunk is not differentiated and consists of 12 tergite-bearing segments and a styliform telson. Limb structure is generally similar to that of other artiopods except for a tripartite exopod and a high degree of differentiation of podomere proportions along the body. A phylogenetic analysis of 20 fossil arthropod taxa based on 36 characters renders E. brocki as a basal taxon within a monophyletic group that comprises all artiopods included. Autapomorphies of this taxon are a filiform antennula and a bilobate exopod that carries lamellae proximally. Trilobites are nested within a group of artiopods sharing a pygidium. Agnostus pisiformis is retrieved as the sister taxon to the stem-lineage crustacean Oelandocaris oelandica, and both constitute the sister taxon of Artiopoda. ‘Great appendage’ arthropods, traditionally included in the Arachnomorpha, are retrieved as sister to the Crustacea sensu lato + Artiopoda clade, which contradicts the arachnomorph concept.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1080/14772019.2011.566634",
    doi = "10.1080/14772019.2011.566634",
    openalex = "W2149698609",
    references = "doi10108003115510508619300, doi10108011035890809452772, doi101098rstb19810033, doi101111j10963642200900562x, doi101666060821, doi104095103458, openalexw2240758963"
}

@article{doi101098rspb20111439,
    author = "Etienne, Rampal S. and Haegeman, Bart and Stadler, Tanja and Aze, Tracy and Pearson, Paul N. and Purvis, Andy and Phillimore, Albert B.",
    title = "Diversity-dependence brings molecular phylogenies closer to agreement with the fossil record",
    year = "2011",
    journal = "Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences",
    abstract = "The branching times of molecular phylogenies allow us to infer speciation and extinction dynamics even when fossils are absent. Troublingly, phylogenetic approaches usually return estimates of zero extinction, conflicting with fossil evidence. Phylogenies and fossils do agree, however, that there are often limits to diversity. Here, we present a general approach to evaluate the likelihood of a phylogeny under a model that accommodates diversity-dependence and extinction. We find, by likelihood maximization, that extinction is estimated most precisely if the rate of increase in the number of lineages in the phylogeny saturates towards the present or first decreases and then increases. We demonstrate the utility and limits of our approach by applying it to the phylogenies for two cases where a fossil record exists (Cetacea and Cenozoic macroperforate planktonic foraminifera) and to three radiations lacking fossil evidence (Dendroica, Plethodon and Heliconius). We propose that the diversity-dependence model with extinction be used as the standard model for macro-evolutionary dynamics because of its biological realism and flexibility.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2011.1439",
    doi = "10.1098/rspb.2011.1439",
    openalex = "W2126833785",
    references = "doi101111j1469185x201100178x, doi101126science1189910"
}

@article{doi101130g325801,
    author = "Butterfield, Nicholas J. and Harvey, Thomas H. P.",
    title = "Small carbonaceous fossils (SCFs): A new measure of early Paleozoic paleobiology",
    year = "2011",
    journal = "Geology",
    abstract = "Use of a low-manipulation hydrofluoric acid-extraction procedure on Cambrian mudstones reveals an unexpectedly abundant and diverse range of small carbonaceous fossils (SCFs), primarily the disarticulated sclerites and cuticular fragments of animals. Relatively recalcitrant forms such as Wiwaxia sclerites and priapulid-like scalids are sufficiently common to yield a reasonably reliable biostratigraphic signal, unlike their rare macroscopic counterparts. Molluscan radulae, crustacean appendages, and the carbonaceous components of originally mineralized metazoan sclerites provide further insights into the histology, diversity, and distribution of early metazoans. The widespread occurrence of SCFs is due in part to their enhanced biostratinomic potential for transport, burial, and preservation, particularly in well-aerated epicratonic settings not represented by Burgess Shale–type macrofossils. More generally, the SCF record represents a largely untapped measure of ecological and evolutionary dynamics through the early Paleozoic.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1130/g32580.1",
    doi = "10.1130/g32580.1",
    openalex = "W2333451854",
    references = "doi101016jpalaeo200407034, doi101016jprecamres200901008, doi101017s0094837300009994, doi101093icb431166, doi101111j14754983200700656x, doi101111j150239311995tb01587x, doi101126science2244648492, doi101126science2464928339, doi101130g24961a1, doi1016690883135120040190178ctpwtf20co2, openalexw2596645538"
}

@article{doi101139e11018,
    author = "Ineson, Jon R. and Peel, John S.",
    title = "Geological and depositional setting of the Sirius Passet Lagerstätte (Early Cambrian), North Greenland",
    year = "2011",
    journal = "Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences",
    abstract = "The Early Cambrian Sirius Passet Lagerstätte of North Greenland occurs in marine mudstones (Buen Formation) deposited in a slope environment along the eroded scarp of a pre-existing carbonate platform. The shallow-water platform is represented by dolostones of the Portfjeld Formation (Neoproterozoic – earliest Cambrian), which record a belt of tide-swept subtidal ooid shoals and microbial patch reefs at the outer edge of the platform. Solution features and meteoric cements attest to exposure of the platform, accompanied by fracturing, mass wastage and erosional retreat of the escarpment producing slope talus, and extensive debris sheets and olistoliths in basinal deposits. The marine mud-dominated siliciclastics of the Buen Formation, deposited in slope and shelf environments, record the transgression and onlap of the degraded platform in the Early Cambrian. The Sirius Passet Lagerstätte has yielded an arthropod-dominated fossil assemblage of over 40 species, many showing exceptional preservation of soft tissues; the finely laminated mudstones hosting this fauna accumulated from suspension in a poorly oxygenated slope sub-environment, such as an erosional embayment or abandoned slope gully. Although taphonomic features suggest that the fauna is mainly parautochthonous, some components (e.g., sponges, worms, the halkieriids and certain sightless arthropods) may be truly autochthonous. Comparison of the Sirius Passet locality with the renowned Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale of western Canada reveals similarities in overall depositional and tectonic setting: both accumulated in deep water adjacent to the steep, eroded margins of carbonate platforms — settings that subsequently sheltered the faunas from tectonic and metamorphic obliteration.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1139/e11-018",
    doi = "10.1139/e11-018",
    openalex = "W1974265952",
    references = "doi101016jpalaeo200902013, doi101016jpalwor200610016, doi101038324055a0, doi101046j13653091200100360x, doi10108003115519508619270, doi101086626965, doi101098rstb19950029, doi102110pec79270075, doi103140bullgeosci1207, doi107312zhur10612, openalexw2134978213, openalexw2754161204"
}

@article{openalexw1557571618,
    author = "Harvey, Thomas H. P. and Butterfield, Nicholas J.",
    title = "Great Canadian Lagerstätten 2. Macroand Microfossils of the Mount Cap Formation (Early and Middle Cambrian, Northwest Territories)",
    year = "2011",
    journal = "Geoscience Canada",
    abstract = "The Early–Middle Cambrian Mount Cap Formation, NWT, hosts a diverse range of exceptionally preserved fos sils. Like the celebrated Burgess Shale of British Columbia, the Mount Cap contains carbonaceous compression fossils of animals that lacked mineral ized hard parts, as well as the fully articulated skeletons of shelly taxa. Its unique importance, however, lies in exceptional carbonaceous preservation at a microscopic scale. Acid-extracted microfossils from the ‘Little Bear biota’ of the Mackenzie Mountains reveal important details of problematic groups including chancelloriids and hyolithids, and provide direct evidence of Cambrian diets in the form of fae cal strings. A complementary microfos sil assemblage from the subsurface of the Colville Hills region contains an extraordinary diversity of exquisitely preserved arthropod cuticle, and con stitutes the oldest known record of complex crown-group crustaceans. We discuss the wider significance of the Mount Cap fossils, and describe some new forms that point to the potential for future discoveries.",
    url = "https://openalex.org/W1557571618",
    openalex = "W1557571618"
}

@article{doi101073pnas1111784109,
    author = "Gaines, Robert R. and Hammarlund, Emma U. and Hou, Xianguang and Qi, Changshi and Gabbott, Sarah E. and Zhao, Yuanlong and Peng, Jin and Canfield, Donald E.",
    title = "Mechanism for Burgess Shale-type preservation",
    year = "2012",
    journal = "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences",
    abstract = {Exceptionally preserved fossil biotas of the Burgess Shale and a handful of other similar Cambrian deposits provide rare but critical insights into the early diversification of animals. The extraordinary preservation of labile tissues in these geographically widespread but temporally restricted soft-bodied fossil assemblages has remained enigmatic since Walcott's initial discovery in 1909. Here, we demonstrate the mechanism of Burgess Shale-type preservation using sedimentologic and geochemical data from the Chengjiang, Burgess Shale, and five other principal Burgess Shale-type deposits. Sulfur isotope evidence from sedimentary pyrites reveals that the exquisite fossilization of organic remains as carbonaceous compressions resulted from early inhibition of microbial activity in the sediments by means of oxidant deprivation. Low sulfate concentrations in the global ocean and low-oxygen bottom water conditions at the sites of deposition resulted in reduced oxidant availability. Subsequently, rapid entombment of fossils in fine-grained sediments and early sealing of sediments by pervasive carbonate cements at bed tops restricted oxidant flux into the sediments. A permeability barrier, provided by bed-capping cements that were emplaced at the seafloor, is a feature that is shared among Burgess Shale-type deposits, and resulted from the unusually high alkalinity of Cambrian oceans. Thus, Burgess Shale-type preservation of soft-bodied fossil assemblages worldwide was promoted by unique aspects of early Paleozoic seawater chemistry that strongly impacted sediment diagenesis, providing a fundamentally unique record of the immediate aftermath of the "Cambrian explosion."},
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1111784109",
    doi = "10.1073/pnas.1111784109",
    openalex = "W2122986069",
    references = "briggs1994decay, doi1010160009254194900612, doi1010160016703779900954, doi101016jpalaeo200407034, doi101016s0016703700005846, doi101038296643a0, doi101038nature09700, doi101038nature10969, doi101073pnas0902037106, doi101073pnas1011287107, doi101098rstb19810033, doi101111j150239311995tb01587x, doi101126science1135013, doi101126science1154499, doi1011300091761319950231079isbapo23co2, doi101130g206401, doi101130g24961a1, doi1016660094837320020280155lgatio20co2, doi102475ajs2929659"
}

@article{doi101080104209402012703626,
    author = "Mikuláš, Radek and Fatka, Oldřich and Szabad, Michal",
    title = "Paleoecologic Implications of Ichnofossils Associated with Slightly Skeletonized Body Fossils, Middle Cambrian of the Barrandian Area, Czech Republic",
    year = "2012",
    journal = "Ichnos/Ichnos : an international journal for plant and animal traces",
    abstract = {Several sites of the Middle Cambrian Jince and Buchava formations (Barrandian area, Czech Republic), showing features of Burgess Shale-type preservation, yielded diverse ichnofossils adjacent to non- or poorly biomineralized body fossils of arthropods, and less commonly, acrotretid brachiopods. Based on morphology,.i.Gordia./i.-like,.i.Cochlichnus./i.-like,.i.Planolites./i.-like,.i.Treptichnus./i.-like and.i.Pilichnus./i.-like traces occur with "nondescript" bioturbation. Ethologically, the.i.Gordia./i.-like and.i.Cochlichnus./i.-like traces are interpreted as single-use traces of feeding on microbial halo..i.Treptichnus./i.-like and.i.Pilichnus./i.-like traces suggest later feeding systems associated also with feeding on microbial halo, and.i.Planolites./i.-like traces likely represent a fortuitous feature.},
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1080/10420940.2012.703626",
    doi = "10.1080/10420940.2012.703626",
    openalex = "W2070277647",
    references = "doi101017s0022336000024094, doi101038114085a0, doi10108000241160600787890, doi10108003115519608619475, doi101098rstb19950029, doi10182618200376656199701, doi103140bullgeosci1158, doi105860choice416546, openalexw1516513688, openalexw2344228935, openalexw2751580477"
}

@article{doi101098rspb20121577,
    author = "Smith, Martin R.",
    title = "Mouthparts of the Burgess Shale fossils Odontogriphus and Wiwaxia: implications for the ancestral molluscan radula",
    year = "2012",
    journal = "Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences",
    abstract = "The Middle Cambrian lophotrochozoans Odontogriphus omalus and Wiwaxia corrugata have been interpreted as stem-group members of either the Mollusca, the Annelida, or a group containing Mollusca + Annelida. The case for each classification rests on the organisms' unusual mouthparts, whose two to three tooth-rows resemble both the molluscan radula and the jaws of certain annelid worms. Despite their potential significance, these mouthparts have not previously been described in detail. This study examined the feeding apparatuses of over 300 specimens from the 505-million-year-old Burgess Shale, many of which were studied for the first time. Rather than denticulate plates, each tooth row comprises a single axial tooth that is flanked on each side by eight to 16 separate shoehorn-shaped teeth. Tooth rows sat on a grooved basal tongue, and two large lobes flanked the apparatus. New observations--the shape, distribution and articulation of the individual teeth, and the mouthparts' mode of growth--are incompatible with an annelid interpretation, instead supporting a classification in Mollusca. The ancestral molluscan radula is best reconstructed as unipartite with a symmetrical medial tooth, and Odontogriphus and Wiwaxia as grazing deposit-feeders.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2012.1577",
    doi = "10.1098/rspb.2012.1577",
    openalex = "W2137076034",
    references = "openalexw2595590115"
}

@article{doi1011861471214812162,
    author = "Haug, Joachim T. and Briggs, Derek E. G. and Haug, Carolin",
    title = "Morphology and function in the Cambrian Burgess Shale megacheiran arthropod Leanchoilia superlata and the application of a descriptive matrix",
    year = "2012",
    journal = "BMC Evolutionary Biology",
    abstract = "BACKGROUND: Leanchoilia superlata is one of the best known arthropods from the middle Cambrian Burgess Shale of British Columbia. Here we re-describe the morphology of L. superlata and discuss its possible autecology. The re-description follows a standardized scheme, the descriptive matrix approach, designed to provide a template for descriptions of other megacheiran species. RESULTS: Our findings differ in several respects from previous interpretations. Examples include a more slender body; a possible hypostome; a small specialised second appendage, bringing the number of pairs of head appendages to four; a further sub-division of the great appendage, making it more similar to that of other megacheirans; and a complex joint of the exopod reflecting the arthropod's swimming capabilities. CONCLUSIONS: Different aspects of the morphology, for example, the morphology of the great appendage and the presence of a basipod with strong median armature on the biramous appendages indicate that L. superlata was an active and agile necto-benthic predator (not a scavenger or deposit feeder as previously interpreted).",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2148-12-162",
    doi = "10.1186/1471-2148-12-162",
    openalex = "W2039358654",
    references = "doi101016jasd200501005, doi101017s009483730001263x, doi101046j14390469200100164x, doi10108000241160410004764, doi10108011035899509546213, doi101111j10960031200900278x, doi101111j14754983200700649x, doi101126science1169514, doi1016660094837320020280155lgatio20co2, doi101826182000751171987, doi101826182003769311997, doi1023071219595, doi104202app20100080"
}

@article{doi101371journalpone0052200,
    author = "Vannier, Jean",
    title = "Gut Contents as Direct Indicators for Trophic Relationships in the Cambrian Marine Ecosystem",
    year = "2012",
    journal = "PLoS ONE",
    abstract = "Present-day ecosystems host a huge variety of organisms that interact and transfer mass and energy via a cascade of trophic levels. When and how this complex machinery was established remains largely unknown. Although exceptionally preserved biotas clearly show that Early Cambrian animals had already acquired functionalities that enabled them to exploit a wide range of food resources, there is scant direct evidence concerning their diet and exact trophic relationships. Here I describe the gut contents of Ottoia prolifica, an abundant priapulid worm from the middle Cambrian (Stage 5) Burgess Shale biota. I identify the undigested exoskeletal remains of a wide range of small invertebrates that lived at or near the water sediment interface such as hyolithids, brachiopods, different types of arthropods, polychaetes and wiwaxiids. This set of direct fossil evidence allows the first detailed reconstruction of the diet of a 505-million-year-old animal. Ottoia was a dietary generalist and had no strict feeding regime. It fed on both living individuals and decaying organic matter present in its habitat. The feeding behavior of Ottoia was remarkably simple, reduced to the transit of food through an eversible pharynx and a tubular gut with limited physical breakdown and no storage. The recognition of generalist feeding strategies, exemplified by Ottoia, reveals key-aspects of modern-style trophic complexity in the immediate aftermath of the Cambrian explosion. It also shows that the middle Cambrian ecosystem was already too complex to be understood in terms of simple linear dynamics and unique pathways.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0052200",
    doi = "10.1371/journal.pone.0052200",
    openalex = "W2088717921",
    references = "doi1010079781461501619, doi101016jpalaeo200705023, doi101073pnas0903474106, doi10108000241160410004764, doi101098rspb20090361, doi101098rstb19810164, doi101098rstb20140313, doi101111j14610248200400606x, doi101111j14754983200700656x, doi101146annurevearth33092203122519, doi101371journalpbio0060102, doi101371journalpone0029233, doi101666060821, doi102110palo2003p05070r, doi102110palo2009p09004r, openalexw1573076930, openalexw2604533467, openalexw2754161204, openalexw2912219260, openalexw659399033"
}

@article{openalexw2595590115,
    author = "Harvey, Thomas H. P. and Butterfield, Nicholas J.",
    title = "Macro- and microfossils of the Mount Cap Formation (Early and Middle Cambrian, Northwest Territories).",
    year = "2012",
    journal = "Department of Earth Sciences EPrints Repository",
    abstract = "The Early–Middle Cambrian Mount Cap Formation, NWT, hosts a diverse range of exceptionally preserved fos sils. Like the celebrated Burgess Shale of British Columbia, the Mount Cap contains carbonaceous compression fossils of animals that lacked mineral ized hard parts, as well as the fully articulated skeletons of shelly taxa. Its unique importance, however, lies in exceptional carbonaceous preservation at a microscopic scale. Acid-extracted microfossils from the ‘Little Bear biota’ of the Mackenzie Mountains reveal important details of problematic groups including chancelloriids and hyolithids, and provide direct evidence of Cambrian diets in the form of fae cal strings. A complementary microfos sil assemblage from the subsurface of the Colville Hills region contains an extraordinary diversity of exquisitely preserved arthropod cuticle, and con stitutes the oldest known record of complex crown-group crustaceans. We discuss the wider significance of the Mount Cap fossils, and describe some new forms that point to the potential for future discoveries.",
    url = "https://openalex.org/W2595590115",
    openalex = "W2595590115"
}

@article{doi101038ncomms3485,
    author = "Legg, David and Sutton, Mark D. and Edgecombe, Gregory D.",
    title = "Arthropod fossil data increase congruence of morphological and molecular phylogenies",
    year = "2013",
    journal = "Nature Communications",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms3485",
    doi = "10.1038/ncomms3485",
    openalex = "W1995454352",
    references = "doi101007s0042700600854, doi101016jasd200910002, doi101016jcub201301026, doi101016s0748300703000604, doi10103835093097, doi101038417271a, doi101038nature08742, doi101038nature11874, doi101093molbevmss216, doi101098rspb20121958, doi101111j109600311993tb00209x, doi101111j109600311999tb00277x, doi101111j109600311999tb00278x, doi101111j109600312003tb00376x, doi101111j10960031200500059x, doi101111j10960031200800209x, doi101111j10960031200800217x"
}

@article{doi101080147720192012732723,
    author = "Daley, Allison C. and Budd, Graham E. and Caron, Jean‐Bernard",
    title = "Morphology and systematics of the anomalocaridid arthropod Hurdia from the Middle Cambrian of British Columbia and Utah",
    year = "2013",
    journal = "Journal of Systematic Palaeontology",
    abstract = "In Cambrian fossil Lagerstätten like the Burgess Shale, exceptionally preserved arthropods constitute a large part of the taxonomic diversity, providing opportunities to study the early evolution of this phylum in detail. The anomalocaridids, large presumed pelagic predators, are particularly relevant owing to their unique combination of morphological characters and basal position in the arthropod stem lineage. Although isolated elements and fragmented specimens were first discovered over 100 years ago, subsequent findings of more complete bodies of Anomalocaris and Peytoia, especially in the 1980s, allowed for a better understanding of these enigmatic forms. Their evolutionary significance as stem group arthropods was further clarified by the recent discovery of a third anomalocaridid taxon, Hurdia. Here, examination of hundreds of Hurdia specimens from different stratigraphical layers within the Burgess Shale and Stephen Formation, combined with statistical analyses, provides a detailed description of the taphonomy, morphology and diversity of the genus and further elucidates anomalocaridid systematics. Hurdia is distinguished from other anomalocaridids in having mouthparts with extra rows of teeth, a large frontal carapace complex and diminutive swimming flaps with prominent setal structures. The two original species, H. victoria Walcott, 1912 and H. triangulata Walcott, 1912, are confirmed based on morphometric outline analyses of the frontal carapace components combined with stratigraphical evidence; a third species, Hurdia dentata Simonetta \& Delle Cave, 1975, is synonymized with H. victoria. Morphology, preservation and stratigraphical distribution suggest that H. victoria and H. triangulata share the same type of frontal appendage; a second type of appendage, previously assigned to Hurdia (Morph A), belongs to Peytoia nathorsti. These and other morphological differences between the anomalocaridids may reflect different feeding strategies. Appendages and mouthparts of Hurdia indet. sp. are also identified from the Spence Shale Member of Utah, making Hurdia and Anomalocaris the most common and globally distributed anomalocaridid taxa.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1080/14772019.2012.732723",
    doi = "10.1080/14772019.2012.732723",
    openalex = "W2095162853",
    references = "doi10100797894009919727, doi1010160146664x8290034x, doi101016jpalaeo200902013, doi101038114085a0, doi10108003115519608619475, doi101093sysbio34159, doi101242jcss2935309, doi101371journalpone0029233, doi101666pleo050701, doi101826182003769311997, doi1023072413345, doi1023072992562, doi104202app20090058, doi105281zenodo16273729"
}

@article{doi10166612056,
    author = "Zhao, Fangchen and Caron, Jean‐Bernard and Bottjer, David J. and Hu, Shixue and Yin, Zongjun and Zhu, Maoyan",
    title = "Diversity and species abundance patterns of the Early Cambrian (Series 2, Stage 3) Chengjiang Biota from China",
    year = "2013",
    journal = "Paleobiology",
    abstract = "Lagerstätten from the Precambrian–Cambrian transition have traditionally been a relatively untapped resource for understanding the paleoecology of the “Cambrian explosion.” This quantitative paleoecological study is based on 10,238 fossil specimens belonging to 100 animal species, 11 phyla, and 15 ecological categories from the lower Cambrian (Series 2, Stage 3) Chengjiang biota (Mafang locality near Haikou, Yunnan Province, China). Fossils were systematically collected within a 2.5-meter-thick sequence divided into ten stratigraphic intervals. Each interval represents an induced time-averaged assemblage of various event (obrution) beds of unknown duration. Overall, the different fossil assemblages are taxonomically and ecologically similar, suggesting the presence of a single community type recurring throughout the Mafang section. The Mafang community is dominated by epibenthic vagile hunters or scavengers, sessile suspension feeders, and infaunal vagile hunters or scavengers represented primarily by arthropods, brachiopods, and priapulids, respectively. Most species have low abundance and low occurrence frequencies, whereas a few species are numerically abundant and occur frequently. Overall, in structure and ecology the Mafang community is comparable to the Middle Cambrian (Series 3, Stage 5) Burgess Shale biota (Walcott Quarry, Yoho National Park, British Columbia, Canada). This suggests that, despite variations in species identity within taxonomic and ecological groups, the structure and ecology of Cambrian Burgess Shale-type communities remained relatively stable until at least the Middle Cambrian (Series 3, Stage 5) in subtidal to relatively deep-water offshore settings in siliciclastic soft-substrate environments.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1666/12056",
    doi = "10.1666/12056",
    openalex = "W2165047391",
    references = "doi10103846965, doi101038nature01264, doi101086321317, doi101111j1469185x201200220x, doi101111pala12042, doi101126science1189910, doi101126science1206375, doi101666061301, doi1018901119521, doi102110palo2009p09004r, doi1023071934145, doi105860choice416546, doi105860choice421547, openalexw2183707334"
}

@article{doi101016jpalwor201411004,
    author = "Sun, Haijing and Babcock, Loren E. and Peng, Jin and Zhao, Yuanlong",
    title = "Hyolithids and associated trace fossils from the Balang Formation (Cambrian Stage 4), Guizhou, China",
    year = "2014",
    journal = "Palaeoworld",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.palwor.2014.11.004",
    doi = "10.1016/j.palwor.2014.11.004",
    openalex = "W2035009088",
    references = "doi101080104209402012703626"
}

@article{doi101017s108933260000276x,
    author = "Laflamme, Marc and Schiffbauer, James D. and Darroch, Simon A.F.",
    title = "Reading and Writing of the Fossil Record: Preservational Pathways to Exceptional Fossilization",
    year = "2014",
    journal = "The Paleontological Society Papers",
    abstract = "An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1017/s108933260000276x",
    doi = "10.1017/s108933260000276x",
    openalex = "W2990281861"
}

@article{doi101017s1089332600002837,
    author = "Gaines, Robert R.",
    title = "Burgess Shale-type Preservation and its Distribution in Space and Time",
    year = "2014",
    journal = "The Paleontological Society Papers",
    abstract = "Burgess Shale-type fossil assemblages provide a unique record of animal life in the immediate aftermath of the so-called “Cambrian explosion.” While most soft-bodied faunas in the rock record were conserved by mineral replication of soft tissues, Burgess Shale-type preservation involved the conservation of whole assemblages of soft-bodied animals as primary carbonaceous remains, often preserved in extraordinary anatomical detail. Burgess Shale-type preservation resulted from a combination of influences operating at both local and global scales that acted to drastically slow microbial degradation in the early burial environment, resulting in incomplete decomposition and the conservation of soft-bodied animals, many of which are otherwise unknown from the fossil record. While Burgess Shale-type fossil assemblages are primarily restricted to early and middle Cambrian strata (Series 2–3), their anomalous preservation is a pervasive phenomenon that occurs widely in mudstone successions deposited on multiple paleocontinents. Herein, circumstances that led to the preservation of Burgess Shale-type fossils in Cambrian strata worldwide are reviewed. A three-tiered rank classification of the more than 50 Burgess Shale-type deposits now known is proposed and is used to consider the hierarchy of controls that regulated the operation of Burgess Shale-type preservation in space and time, ultimately determining the total number of preserved taxa and the fidelity of preservation in each deposit. While Burgess Shale-type preservation is a unique taphonomic mode that ultimately was regulated by the influence of global seawater chemistry upon the early diagenetic environment, physical depositional (biostratinomic) controls are shown to have been critical in determining the total number of taxa preserved in fossil assemblages, and hence, in regulating many of the important differences among Burgess Shale-type deposits.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1017/s1089332600002837",
    doi = "10.1017/s1089332600002837",
    openalex = "W3021781741",
    references = "briggs2003the, doi1010160016703784900899, doi101016jchemgeo200409003, doi101016jchemgeo200602012, doi101016jgca200511032, doi101016jpalaeo200306001, doi101016jpalaeo200407034, doi101016jpalaeo200705023, doi101016jpalaeo201003048, doi101016jpalaeo201202009, doi101017s1089332600002795, doi101038296643a0, doi101038nature08745, doi101038nature09038, doi101038nature10689, doi101038ncomms4210, doi101038ncomms4560, doi101073pnas1111784109, doi10108001490458709385971, doi101111j14754983200700656x, doi101126science1206375, doi101126science2224620163, doi1011300091761319950231079isbapo23co2, doi101130g206401, doi101130g24961a1, doi101139e06012, doi101146annurevearth33031504103001, doi102110palo2003p05070r, doi102110palo2009p09004r, doi102475ajs2929659"
}

@article{doi101038ncomms6754,
    author = "Schiffbauer, James D. and Xiao, Shuhai and Cai, Yaoping and Wallace, Adam F. and Hua, Hong and Hunter, Jerry and Xu, Huifang and Peng, Yongbo and Kaufman, Alan J.",
    title = "A unifying model for Neoproterozoic–Palaeozoic exceptional fossil preservation through pyritization and carbonaceous compression",
    year = "2014",
    journal = "Nature Communications",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms6754",
    doi = "10.1038/ncomms6754",
    openalex = "W2090998939",
    references = "doi101016jpalaeo201202009, doi101038nature09038, doi101073pnas1111784109, doi101130g206401, doi101130g24961a1, doi101130g319691"
}

@article{doi101038srep04643,
    author = "Yang, Jie and Smith, Martin R. and Lan, Tian and Hou, Jin‐bo and Zhang, Xiguang",
    title = "Articulated Wiwaxia from the Cambrian Stage 3 Xiaoshiba Lagerstätte",
    year = "2014",
    journal = "Scientific Reports",
    abstract = "Wiwaxia is a bizarre metazoan that has been interpreted as a primitive mollusc and as a polychaete annelid worm. Extensive material from the Burgess Shale provides a detailed picture of its morphology and ontogeny, but the fossil record outside this lagerstätte is scarce, and complete wiwaxiids are particularly rare. Here we report small articulated specimens of Wiwaxia foliosa sp. nov. from the Xiaoshiba fauna (Cambrian Stage 3, Hongjingshao Formation, Kunming, south China). Although spines are absent, the fossils' sclerites - like those of W. corrugata - are symmetrically arranged in five distinct zones. They form rows across the body, and were individually added and shed throughout growth to retain an approximately symmetrical body shape. Their development pattern suggests a molluscan affinity. The basic body plan of wiwaxiids is fundamentally conserved across two continents through Cambrian Stages 3-5 - revealing morphological stasis in the wake of the Cambrian explosion.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1038/srep04643",
    doi = "10.1038/srep04643",
    openalex = "W2059203461",
    references = "openalexw2595590115"
}

@article{doi101111brv12090,
    author = "Antcliffe, Jonathan B. and Callow, Richard H. T. and Brasier, Martin D.",
    title = "Giving the early fossil record of sponges a squeeze",
    year = "2014",
    journal = "Biological reviews/Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society",
    abstract = "Twenty candidate fossils with claim to be the oldest representative of the Phylum Porifera have been re-analysed. Three criteria are used to assess each candidate: (i) the diagnostic criteria needed to categorize sponges in the fossil record; (ii) the presence, or absence, of such diagnostic features in the putative poriferan fossils; and (iii) the age constraints for the candidate fossils. All three criteria are critical to the correct interpretation of any fossil and its placement within an evolutionary context. Our analysis shows that no Precambrian fossil candidate yet satisfies all three of these criteria to be a reliable sponge fossil. The oldest widely accepted candidate, Mongolian silica hexacts from c. 545 million years ago (Ma), are here shown to be cruciform arsenopyrite crystals. The oldest reliable sponge remains are siliceous spicules from the basal Cambrian (Protohertzina anabarica Zone) Soltanieh Formation, Iran, which are described and analysed here in detail for the first time. Extensive archaeocyathan sponge reefs emerge and radiate as late as the middle of the Fortunian Stage of the Cambrian and demonstrate a gradual assembly of their skeletal structure through this time coincident with the evolution of other metazoan groups. Since the Porifera are basal in the Metazoa, their presence within the late Proterozoic has been widely anticipated. Molecular clock calibration for the earliest Porifera and Metazoa should now be based on the Iranian hexactinellid material dated to c. 535 Ma. The earliest convincing fossil sponge remains appeared at around the time of the Precambrian-Cambrian boundary, associated with the great radiation events of that interval.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1111/brv.12090",
    doi = "10.1111/brv.12090",
    openalex = "W2130095841",
    references = "brasier1987microfossils, doi10100797814615074751, doi10100797814899242787, doi101016003192018990263x, doi101016jcub200902052, doi101016jearscirev201303008, doi101016jpalaeo200401022, doi101017s0016756811000720, doi101038416076a, doi101038nature07673, doi101038nature08745, doi101038nature09166, doi10109900207713522297, doi101111j1469185x1999tb00046x, doi101111j14724669201000246x, doi101126science1107765, doi101126science1169514, doi101126science1206375, doi101130b256301, doi101371journalpbio1000602, tiwari1999organicwalled"
}

@article{doi101016jasd201507005,
    author = "Strausfeld, Nicholas J. and Ma, Xiaoya and Edgecombe, Gregory D. and Fortey, Richard A. and Land, Michael F. and Liu, Yu and Cong, Peiyun and Hou, Xianguang",
    title = "Arthropod eyes: The early Cambrian fossil record and divergent evolution of visual systems",
    year = "2015",
    journal = "Arthropod Structure \& Development",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asd.2015.07.005",
    doi = "10.1016/j.asd.2015.07.005",
    openalex = "W1446681948",
    references = "doi101016016895259090017z, doi101016jcub200507034, doi101016jcub201301026, doi101038nature12520, doi101038nature14256, doi101038srep02120, doi101093molbevmsq130, doi101098rspb19940048, doi101098rspb20090361, doi101111j10960031201200413x, doi10118617429994101, doi10118617429994729, doi101371journalpbio1002005, doi101666060821, doi101666121121, doi101666pleo050701, doi105860choice416546, openalexw650377807"
}

@article{doi101016jasd201509004,
    author = "Daley, Allison C. and Drage, Harriet B.",
    title = "The fossil record of ecdysis, and trends in the moulting behaviour of trilobites",
    year = "2015",
    journal = "Arthropod Structure \& Development",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asd.2015.09.004",
    doi = "10.1016/j.asd.2015.09.004",
    openalex = "W1888564401",
    references = "doi101016jasd201509003, doi101080147720192012732723, doi101080147720192013852903, doi101111j150239311979tb01234x, doi101111j150239311999tb00547x, doi101111j15023931200800104x, doi101111let12026, doi101371journalpone0052200, doi1016510830961, doi10166609102r1, doi102517prpsj771"
}

@article{doi101016jearscirev201502003,
    author = "Perrier, Vincent and Williams, Mark and Siveter, David J.",
    title = "The fossil record and palaeoenvironmental significance of marine arthropod zooplankton",
    year = "2015",
    journal = "Earth-Science Reviews",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.earscirev.2015.02.003",
    doi = "10.1016/j.earscirev.2015.02.003",
    openalex = "W2062451634",
    references = "openalexw1485830652, openalexw1557571618, openalexw2185676932"
}

@article{doi101016jpalaeo201507041,
    author = "Muscente, A.D. and Xiao, Shuhai",
    title = "New occurrences of Sphenothallus in the lower Cambrian of South China: Implications for its affinities and taphonomic demineralization of shelly fossils",
    year = "2015",
    journal = "Palaeogeography Palaeoclimatology Palaeoecology",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.palaeo.2015.07.041",
    doi = "10.1016/j.palaeo.2015.07.041",
    openalex = "W1004185161",
    references = "openalexw1557571618, openalexw2595590115"
}

@article{doi101017jpa20145,
    author = "Kimmig, Julien and Pratt, Brian R.",
    title = "Soft-bodied biota from the middle Cambrian (Drumian) Rockslide Formation, Mackenzie Mountains, northwestern Canada",
    year = "2015",
    journal = "Journal of Paleontology",
    abstract = "Abstract A new Burgess Shale-type Lagerstätte is described from the middle Cambrian (Series 3, Drumian) Rockslide Formation of the Mackenzie Mountains, Northwest Territories, Canada. The Rockslide Formation is a unit of deeper water ramp to slope, mixed carbonate, and siliciclastic facies deposited on the northwestern margin of Laurentia. At the fossil-bearing locality, the unit onlaps a fault scarp cutting lower Cambrian sandstones. There it consists of a succession of shale and thick-laminated to thin-bedded lime mudstone, calcareous sandstone, and greenish-colored calcareous mudstone, overlain by shallower water dolostones of the Avalanche Formation, which is indicative of an overall progradational sequence. The Rockslide Formation is of similar age to the Wheeler and Marjum formations of Utah, belonging to the Bolaspidella Biozone. Only two 1 m thick units of greenish mudstone exhibit soft-bodied preservation, with most specimens coming from the lower interval. However, the biota is common but not as diverse as that of other Lagerstätten such as the Burgess Shale in its type area. The shelly fauna is dominated by the hyolith Haplophrentis carinatus Matthew, 1899 along with sparse linguliformean brachiopods, agnostoid arthropods, and ptychoparioid trilobites. The nonmineralized biota includes the macrophytic alga Margaretia dorus Walcott, 1911, priapulid worms, and the carapaces of a number of arthropods. The arthropods belong to Isoxys mackenziensis n. sp., Tuzoia cf. T. guntheri Robison and Richards, 1981; Branchiocaris? sp., Perspicaris? dilatus Robison and Richards, 1981; and bradoriids, along with fragments of arthropods of indeterminate affinities. The style of preservation indicates that most soft parts underwent complete biodegradation, leaving just the more resistant materials such as chitinous arthropod cuticles. The range of preservation and similarity to the coeval biotas preserved in Utah suggests that the composition of this Lagerstätte is probably representative of the community living on the relatively deep-water ramp or slope during middle Cambrian time in Laurentia. This would argue that the extraordinary diversity of the Burgess Shale at Mount Field is anomalous.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1017/jpa.2014.5",
    doi = "10.1017/jpa.2014.5",
    openalex = "W2145153307",
    references = "openalexw1557571618"
}

@article{doi101017jpa201526,
    author = "Morris, Simon Conway and Selden, Paul A. and Gunther, Glade and Jamison, Paul G. and Robison, Richard A.",
    title = "New records of Burgess Shale-type taxa from the middle Cambrian of Utah",
    year = "2015",
    journal = "Journal of Paleontology",
    abstract = "Abstract Cambrian strata of the Laurentian craton contain numerous examples of Burgess Shale–type faunas. Although displaying a more or less concentric distribution around the cratonal margin, most faunal occurrences are in present-day western North America, extending from the Northwest Territories to California. Nevertheless, the soft-bodied and lightly skeletalized fossils in most of these Lagerstätten are highly sporadic. Here, we extend knowledge of such Middle Cambrian occurrences in Utah with reports of four taxa. An arthropod from the Marjum Formation, Dytikosicula desmatae gen. et sp. nov., is a putative megacheiran. It is most similar to Dicranocaris guntherorum, best known from the younger Wheeler Formation, but differs primarily in the arrangement of pleurae and overall size. Along with a specimen of? Yohoia sp, a new species of Yohoia, Y. utahana sp. nov., is described. It differs from the type and only known species, Y. tenuis, principally in its larger size and shorter exopods; it is the first description of this genus from outside the Burgess Shale. A new species of a stem-group lophotrochozoan from the Spence Shale, Wiwaxia herka sp. nov., possesses a palisade of dorso-lateral spines that are more robust and numerous than the type species of Wiwaxia, W. corrugata. Another notable taxon is Eldonia ludwigi from the Marjum Formation, which is interpreted as a primitive ambulacrarian (assigned to the cambroernids) and a new specimen of the?cnidarian Cambrorhytium from the Wheeler Shale is illustrated.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1017/jpa.2015.26",
    doi = "10.1017/jpa.2015.26",
    openalex = "W1921113587",
    references = "doi101139e11018, doi103140bullgeosci1269, doi103140bullgeosci1280"
}

@article{doi101098rstb20140313,
    author = "Briggs, Derek E G",
    title = "Extraordinary fossils reveal the nature of Cambrian life: a commentary on Whittington (1975) 'The enigmatic animal Opabinia regalis, Middle Cambrian, Burgess Shale, British Columbia'.",
    year = "2015",
    journal = "Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences",
    abstract = "Harry Whittington's 1975 monograph on Opabinia was the first to highlight how some of the Burgess Shale animals differ markedly from those that populate today's oceans. Categorized by Stephen J. Gould as a 'weird wonder' (Wonderful life, 1989) Opabinia, together with other unusual Burgess Shale fossils, stimulated ongoing debates about the early evolution of the major animal groups and the nature of the Cambrian explosion. The subsequent discovery of a number of other exceptionally preserved fossil faunas of Cambrian and early Ordovician age has significantly augmented the information available on this critical interval in the history of life. Although Opabinia initially defied assignment to any group of modern animals, it is now interpreted as lying below anomalocaridids on the stem leading to the living arthropods. This commentary was written to celebrate the 350th anniversary of the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.",
    url = "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4360120/",
    doi = "10.1098/rstb.2014.0313",
    openalex = "W1981460678",
    pmcid = "PMC4360120",
    pmid = "25750235",
    references = "doi101017s009483730001263x, doi101038nature09038, doi101038nature10689, doi101073pnas1111784109, doi101111j150239311995tb01587x, doi101126science1206375, doi101130g24961a1, doi105860choice273873, openalexw2754161204, openalexw3127114020"
}

@article{doi101111pala12168,
    author = "Smith, Martin R. and Harvey, Thomas H. P. and Butterfield, Nicholas J.",
    title = "The macro‐ and microfossil record of the Cambrian priapulid Ottoia",
    year = "2015",
    journal = "Palaeontology",
    abstract = "Abstract The stem‐group priapulid Ottoia Walcott, 1911, is the most abundant worm in the mid‐Cambrian Burgess Shale, but has not been unambiguously demonstrated elsewhere. High‐resolution electron and optical microscopy of macroscopic Burgess Shale specimens reveals the detailed anatomy of its robust hooks, spines and pharyngeal teeth, establishing the presence of two species: Ottoia prolifica Walcott, 1911, and Ottoia tricuspida sp. nov. Direct comparison of these sclerotized elements with a suite of shale‐hosted mid‐to‐late Cambrian microfossils extends the range of ottoiid priapulids throughout the middle to upper Cambrian strata of the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin. Ottoiid priapulids represented an important component of Cambrian ecosystems: they occur in a range of lithologies and thrived in shallow water as well as in the deep‐water setting of the Burgess Shale. A wider survey of Burgess Shale macrofossils reveals specific characters that diagnose priapulid sclerites more generally, establishing the affinity of a wide range of Small Carbonaceous Fossils and demonstrating the prominent role of priapulids in Cambrian seas.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1111/pala.12168",
    doi = "10.1111/pala.12168",
    openalex = "W2128901068",
    references = "doi101016jpalaeo200705023, doi101017s000632310000548x, doi101111j1469185x1999tb00046x, doi101111j14754983200700656x, doi101126science2464928339, doi101126science28153801173, doi101130g308291, doi101130g325801, doi103140bullgeosci1280, doi105860choice416546, openalexw1573076930"
}

@article{doi101144jgs2015017,
    author = "Roy, Peter Van and Briggs, Derek E. G. and Gaines, Robert R.",
    title = "The Fezouata fossils of Morocco; an extraordinary record of marine life in the Early Ordovician",
    year = "2015",
    journal = "Journal of the Geological Society",
    abstract = "The discovery of the Fezouata biota in the latest Tremadocian of southeastern Morocco has significantly changed our understanding of the early Phanerozoic radiation. The shelly fossil record shows a well-recognized pattern of macroevolutionary stasis between the Cambrian Explosion and the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event, but the rich soft-bodied Fezouata biota paints a different evolutionary picture. The Fezouata assemblage includes a considerable component of Cambrian holdovers alongside a surprising number of crown group taxa previously unknown to have evolved by the Early Ordovician. Study of the Fezouata biota is in its early stages, and future discoveries will continue to enrich our view of the dynamics of the early Phanerozoic radiation and of the nature of the fossil record. Supplementary material: A complete faunal list is available at http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/SUP18843.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1144/jgs2015-017",
    doi = "10.1144/jgs2015-017",
    openalex = "W2124526279",
    references = "doi10100797894017960024, doi101016jpalaeo201005031, doi101017s0022336000027773, doi101017s0025315400028575, doi101017s0094837300006539, doi101017s0094837300008186, doi101038122881a0, doi101038nature09038, doi101038nature13010, doi101038nature13414, doi101038nature14256, doi101038ncomms4210, doi101073pnas1111784109, doi101093icb431166, doi101098rstb19810007, doi101111brv12168, doi101126science1169514, doi101130g206401, doi101130g24961a1, doi105962bhltitle50608, doi105962bhltitle82327, doi107312webb12678"
}

@article{doi101144jgs2015083,
    author = "Paterson, John R. and García‐Bellido, Diego C. and Jago, J. B. and Gehlîng, James G. and Lee, Michael S. Y. and Edgecombe, Gregory D.",
    title = "The Emu Bay Shale Konservat-Lagerstätte: a view of Cambrian life from East Gondwana",
    year = "2015",
    journal = "Journal of the Geological Society",
    abstract = "Recent fossil discoveries from the lower Cambrian Emu Bay Shale (EBS) on Kangaroo Island, South Australia, have provided critical insights into the tempo of the Cambrian explosion of animals, such as the origin and seemingly rapid evolution of arthropod compound eyes, as well as extending the geographical ranges of several groups to the East Gondwanan margin, supporting close faunal affinities with South China. The EBS also holds great potential for broadening knowledge on taphonomic pathways involved in the exceptional preservation of fossils in Cambrian Konservat-Lagerstätten. EBS fossils display a range of taphonomic modes for a variety of soft tissues, especially phosphatization and pyritization, in some cases recording a level of anatomical detail that is absent from most Cambrian Konservat-Lagerstätten.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1144/jgs2015-083",
    doi = "10.1144/jgs2015-083",
    openalex = "W2174796179",
    references = "doi101007978148992427812, doi101016b9780444594259000196, doi101016jearscirev201303008, doi101016jgr200708001, doi101016jpalaeo200705023, doi101016jpalwor200610014, doi101017s1089332600002837, doi101038ncomms3485, doi101038ncomms4210, doi101073pnas1111784109, doi101073pnas1400547111, doi10108003115517908565437, doi101111j14754983200900914x, doi101130g206401, doi101130g24961a1, doi101144m382, doi10120197802031805703, doi101371journalpone0009586, doi101666050701, doi10166612056, doi101666pleo050701, doi102110palo2003p05070r, doi102110palo2009p09004r, doi104202app20100080"
}

@article{doi101371journalpone0124979,
    author = "Aria, Cédric and Caron, Jean‐Bernard",
    title = "Cephalic and Limb Anatomy of a New Isoxyid from the Burgess Shale and the Role of “Stem Bivalved Arthropods” in the Disparity of the Frontalmost Appendage",
    year = "2015",
    journal = "PLoS ONE",
    abstract = {We herein describe Surusicaris elegans gen. et sp. nov. (in Isoxyidae, amended), a middle (Series 3, Stage 5) Cambrian bivalved arthropod from the new Burgess Shale deposit of Marble Canyon (Kootenay National Park, British Columbia). Surusicaris exhibits 12 simple, partly undivided biramous trunk limbs with long tripartite caeca, which may illustrate a plesiomorphic "fused" condition of exopod and endopod. We construe also that the head is made of five somites (= four segments), including two eyes, one pair of anomalocaridid-like frontalmost appendages, and three pairs of poorly sclerotized uniramous limbs. This fossil may therefore be a candidate for illustrating the origin of the plesiomorphic head condition in euarthropods, and questions the significance of the "two-segmented head" in, e.g., fuxianhuiids. The frontalmost appendage in isoxyids is intriguingly disparate, bearing similarities with both dinocaridids and euarthropods. In order to evaluate the relative importance of bivalved arthropods, such as Surusicaris, in the hypothetical structuro-functional transition between the dinocaridid frontal appendage and the pre-oral-arguably deutocerebral-appendage of euarthropods, we chose a phenetic approach and computed morphospace occupancy for the frontalmost appendages of 36 stem and crown taxa. Results show different levels of evolutionary decoupling between frontalmost appendage disparity and body plans. Variance is greatest in dinocaridids and "stem bivalved" arthropods, but these groups do not occupy the morphospace homogeneously. Rather, the diversity of frontalmost appendages in "stem bivalved" arthropods, distinct in its absence of clear clustering, is found to link the morphologies of "short great appendages," chelicerae and antennules. This find fits the hypothesis of an increase in disparity of the deutocerebral appendage prior to its diversification in euarthropods, and possibly corresponds to its original time of development. The analysis of this pattern, however, is sensitive to the-still unclear-extent of polyphyly of the "stem bivalved" taxa.},
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0124979",
    doi = "10.1371/journal.pone.0124979",
    openalex = "W637097716",
    references = "doi1010160016703793904512, doi10108003610917408548446, doi10108003610927408827101, doi101098rstb20140313, doi1011111475498300229, doi101146annurevecolsys281129, doi101666121121, doi1023072346830, doi1023072528823, doi1023073498751, doi104202app20090024, openalexw2242001249, openalexw2764433274, openalexw659399033"
}

@article{doi101016jasd201509003,
    author = "Zacaï, Axelle and Vannier, Jean and Lerosey-Aubril, Rudy",
    title = "Reconstructing the diet of a 505-million-year-old arthropod: Sidneyia inexpectans from the Burgess Shale fauna.",
    year = "2016",
    journal = "Arthropod structure \& development",
    abstract = "The feeding ecology of the 505-million-year-old arthropod Sidneyia inexpectans from the middle Cambrian (Series 3, Stage 5) Burgess Shale fauna (British Columbia, Canada) is revealed by three lines of evidence: the structure of its digestive system, the fossilized contents of its gut and the functional anatomy of its appendages. The digestive tract of Sidneyia is straight, tubular and relatively narrow in the trunk region. It is enlarged into a pear-shaped area in the cephalic region and stretches notably to form a large pocket in the abdomen. The mouth is ventral, posteriorly directed and leads to the midgut via a short tubular structure interpreted as the oesophagus. Anteriorly, three pairs of glands with internal, branching tubular structures open into the digestive tract. These glands have equivalents in various Cambrian arthropod taxa (e.g. naraoiids) and modern arthropods. Their primary function was most likely to digest and assimilate food. The abdominal pocket of Sidneyia concentrates undigested skeletal elements and various residues. It is interpreted here as the functional analogue of the stercoral pocket of some extant terrestrial arachnids (e.g. Araneae, Solifugae), whose primary function is to store food residuals and excretory material until defecation. Analysis of the gut contents indicates that Sidneyia fed largely on small ptychopariid trilobites, brachiopods, possibly agnostids, worms and other undetermined animals. Sidneyia was primarily a durophagous carnivore with predatory and/or scavenging habits, feeding on small invertebrates that lived at the water-sediment interface. There is no evidence for selective feeding. Its food items (e.g. living prey or dead material) were grasped and manipulated ventrally by its anterior appendages, then macerated into ingestible fragments and conveyed to the mouth via the converging action of strong molar-like gnathobases. Digestion probably took place within the anterior midgut via enzymes secreted in the glands. Residues were transported through the digestive tract into the abdominal pocket. The storage of faeces suggests infrequent feeding. The early diagenetic three-dimensional preservation of the digestive glands and abdominal pocket may be due to the capacity of Sidneyia to store Phosphorus and Calcium (e.g. spherites) in its digestive tissues during life as do, for example, modern horseshoe crabs.",
    url = "https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26410799/",
    doi = "10.1016/j.asd.2015.09.003",
    pmid = "26410799"
}

@article{doi101016jearscirev201606008,
    author = "Wolfe, Joanna M. and Daley, Allison C. and Legg, David and Edgecombe, Gregory D.",
    title = "Fossil calibrations for the arthropod Tree of Life",
    year = "2016",
    journal = "Earth-Science Reviews",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.earscirev.2016.06.008",
    doi = "10.1016/j.earscirev.2016.06.008",
    openalex = "W2951557978",
    references = "doi101002gj1045, doi101016b9780444594259000196, doi101016b9780444594259000214, doi101016b9780444594259000238, doi101016jcretres201203014, doi101016jcub201205018, doi101016jpalaeo201005031, doi101017cbo9780511535512, doi101038nature08742, doi101038nature09038, doi101038ncomms3485, doi101073pnas1012675108, doi101086675935, doi101093molbevmsj024, doi101093molbevmss216, doi101093sysbio4611, doi101093sysbiosys058, doi101093sysbiosyv080, doi101098rstb19810033, doi101111brv12168, doi101111j15023931200800115x, doi101111syen12132, doi101126science1107765, doi101126science1257570, doi1011631875986607303002, doi101186147121481452, doi101371journalpone0130127, doi10166600223360200680638jmftld20co2, doi101666090751, doi105860choice501469, doi107717peerj1719, doi107717peerj62, müller1983crustacea, openalexw1900040508"
}

@article{doi101111pala12273,
    author = "Slater, Ben J. and Harvey, Thomas H. P. and Guilbaud, Romain and Butterfield, Nicholas J.",
    title = "A cryptic record of Burgess Shale‐type diversity from the early Cambrian of Baltica",
    year = "2016",
    journal = "Palaeontology",
    abstract = "Abstract Exceptionally preserved ‘Burgess Shale‐type’ fossil assemblages from the Cambrian of Laurentia, South China and Australia record a diverse array of non‐biomineralizing organisms. During this time, the palaeocontinent Baltica was geographically isolated from these regions, and is conspicuously lacking in terms of comparable accessible early Cambrian Lagerstätten. Here we report a diverse assemblage of small carbonaceous fossils (SCF s) from the early Cambrian (Stage 4) File Haidar Formation of southeast Sweden and surrounding areas of the Baltoscandian Basin, including exceptionally preserved remains of Burgess Shale‐type metazoans and other organisms. Recovered SCF s include taxonomically resolvable ecdysozoan elements (priapulid and palaeoscolecid worms), lophotrochozoan elements (annelid chaetae and wiwaxiid sclerites), as well as ‘protoconodonts’, denticulate feeding structures, and a background of filamentous and spheroidal microbes. The annelids, wiwaxiids and priapulids are the first recorded from the Cambrian of Baltica. The File Haidar SCF assemblage is broadly comparable to those recovered from Cambrian basins in Laurentia and South China, though differences at lower taxonomic levels point to possible environmental or palaeogeographical controls on taxon ranges. These data reveal a fundamentally expanded picture of early Cambrian diversity on Baltica, and provide key insights into high‐latitude Cambrian faunas and patterns of SCF preservation. We establish three new taxa based on large populations of distinctive SCF s: Baltiscalida njorda gen. et sp. nov. (a priapulid), Baltichaeta jormunganda gen. et sp. nov. (an annelid) and Baltinema rana gen. et sp. nov. (a filamentous problematicum).",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1111/pala.12273",
    doi = "10.1111/pala.12273",
    openalex = "W2564631138",
    references = "doi1010079783642515934, doi101016jearscirev200504001, doi101016jgr200706007, doi101016jgr201306012, doi101016jpalaeo200401022, doi101016jprecamres200704021, doi101038387489a0, doi101038nature06614, doi101038nature09864, doi101038srep14810, doi101111pala12168, doi101126science7886451, doi101144jgs2015083, doi102110csp9907, openalexw1557571618"
}

@book{doi1010029781118896372,
    author = "Hou, Xianguang and Siveter, David J. and Siveter, Derek J. and Aldridge, Richard J. and Cong, Peiyun and Gabbott, Sarah E. and Ma, Xiaoya and Purnell, Mark A. and Williams, Mark",
    title = "The Cambrian Fossils of Chengjiang, China",
    year = "2017",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118896372",
    doi = "10.1002/9781118896372",
    openalex = "W4254217775"
}

@article{doi101002bies201700167,
    author = "Parry, Luke A. and Smithwick, Fiann M. and Nordén, Klara K. and Saitta, Evan T. and Lozano-Fernández, Jesús and Tanner, Alastair R. and Caron, Jean‐Bernard and Edgecombe, Gregory D. and Briggs, Derek E. G. and Vinther, Jakob",
    title = "Soft‐Bodied Fossils Are Not Simply Rotten Carcasses – Toward a Holistic Understanding of Exceptional Fossil Preservation",
    year = "2017",
    journal = "BioEssays",
    abstract = "Exceptionally preserved fossils are the product of complex interplays of biological and geological processes including burial, autolysis and microbial decay, authigenic mineralization, diagenesis, metamorphism, and finally weathering and exhumation. Determining which tissues are preserved and how biases affect their preservation pathways is important for interpreting fossils in phylogenetic, ecological, and evolutionary frameworks. Although laboratory decay experiments reveal important aspects of fossilization, applying the results directly to the interpretation of exceptionally preserved fossils may overlook the impact of other key processes that remove or preserve morphological information. Investigations of fossils preserving non-biomineralized tissues suggest that certain structures that are decay resistant (e.g., the notochord) are rarely preserved (even where carbonaceous components survive), and decay-prone structures (e.g., nervous systems) can fossilize, albeit rarely. As we review here, decay resistance is an imperfect indicator of fossilization potential, and a suite of biological and geological processes account for the features preserved in exceptional fossils.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1002/bies.201700167",
    doi = "10.1002/bies.201700167",
    openalex = "W2768543413",
    references = "briggs1996the, doi101016jcub201606065, doi101038nature04894, doi101038nature12520, doi101038nature13414, doi101038ncomms4210, doi101038ncomms4560, doi101038s415590160022, doi101073pnas1111784109, doi101098rspb20063761, doi101111j1469185x201200220x, doi101111pala12219, doi101130g24961a1, doi10166609147r21, doi102110palo2003p05070r"
}

@article{doi101016jgr201704020,
    author = "Muscente, A.D. and Schiffbauer, James D. and Broce, Jesse S. and Laflamme, Marc and O'Donnell, Kenneth H. and Boag, Thomas H. and Meyer, Michael and Hawkins, Andrew D. and Huntley, John Warren and McNamara, Maria E. and MacKenzie, Lindsay Ann and Stanley, George D. and Hinman, Nancy W. and Hofmann, Michaël and Xiao, Shuhai",
    title = "Exceptionally preserved fossil assemblages through geologic time and space",
    year = "2017",
    journal = "Gondwana Research",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gr.2017.04.020",
    doi = "10.1016/j.gr.2017.04.020",
    openalex = "W2609095816",
    references = "briggs1996the, doi101016jgr201211004, doi101016jpalaeo201202009, doi101016s0031018203006436, doi101038nature09038, doi101073pnas1111784109, doi101126science2224620163, doi101126science28153801173, doi101130g325801, doi1016660094837320020280155lgatio20co2"
}

@article{doi101038nature22080,
    author = "Aria, Cédric and Caron, Jean‐Bernard",
    title = "Burgess Shale fossils illustrate the origin of the mandibulate body plan",
    year = "2017",
    journal = "Nature",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1038/nature22080",
    doi = "10.1038/nature22080",
    openalex = "W2608073582",
    references = "doi101371journalpone0124979"
}

@article{doi101111brv12365,
    author = "Bicknell, Russell D. C. and Paterson, John R.",
    title = "Reappraising the early evidence of durophagy and drilling predation in the fossil record: implications for escalation and the C ambrian E xplosion",
    year = "2017",
    journal = "Biological reviews/Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society",
    abstract = "The Cambrian Explosion is arguably the most extreme example of a biological radiation preserved in the fossil record, and studies of Cambrian Lagerstätten have facilitated the exploration of many facets of this key evolutionary event. As predation was a major ecological driver behind the Explosion - particularly the radiation of biomineralising metazoans - the evidence for shell crushing (durophagy), drilling and puncturing predation in the Cambrian (and possibly the Ediacaran) is considered. Examples of durophagous predation on biomineralised taxa other than trilobites are apparently rare, reflecting predator preference, taphonomic and sampling biases, or simply lack of documentation. The oldest known example of durophagy is shell damage on the problematic taxon Mobergella holsti from the early Cambrian (possibly Terreneuvian) of Sweden. Using functional morphology to identify (or perhaps misidentify) durophagous predators is discussed, with emphasis on the toolkit used by Cambrian arthropods, specifically the radiodontan oral cone and the frontal and gnathobasic appendages of various taxa. Records of drill holes and possible puncture holes in Cambrian shells are mostly on brachiopods, but the lack of prey diversity may represent either a true biological signal or a result of various biases. The oldest drilled Cambrian shells occur in a variety of Terreneuvian-aged taxa, but specimens of the ubiquitous Ediacaran shelly fossil Cloudina also show putative drilling traces. Knowledge on Cambrian shell drillers is sorely lacking and there is little evidence or consensus concerning the taxonomic groups that made the holes, which often leads to the suggestion of an unknown 'soft bodied driller'. Useful methodologies for deciphering the identities and capabilities of shell drillers are outlined. Evidence for puncture holes in Cambrian shelly taxa is rare. Such holes are more jagged than drill holes and possibly made by a Cambrian 'puncher'. The Cambrian arthropod Yohoia may have used its frontal appendages in a jack-knifing manner, similar to Recent stomatopod crustaceans, to strike and puncture shells rapidly. Finally, Cambrian durophagous and shell-drilling predation is considered in the context of escalation - an evolutionary process that, amongst other scenarios, involves predators (and other 'enemies') as the predominant agents of natural selection. The rapid increase in diversity and abundance of biomineralised shells during the early Cambrian is often attributed to escalation: enemies placed selective pressure on prey, forcing phenotypic responses in prey and, by extension, in predator groups over time. Unfortunately, few case studies illustrate long-term patterns in shelly fossil morphologies that may reflect the influence of predation throughout the Cambrian. More studies on phenotypic change in hard-shelled lineages are needed to convincingly illustrate escalation and the responses of prey during the Cambrian.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1111/brv.12365",
    doi = "10.1111/brv.12365",
    openalex = "W2761273897",
    references = "doi1010160031018291900605, doi101016jasd201507005, doi101016jasd201509003, doi101016jearscirev201210002, doi101016jearscirev201510015, doi101016jpalaeo200401022, doi101016jpalaeo201003048, doi101017s000632310000548x, doi101017s0094837300005352, doi10103713436011, doi101038scientificamerican0779122, doi10108011035890401262193, doi101080147720192012732723, doi101098rspb19790081, doi101111j150239311999tb00547x, doi101126science1206375, doi101130g325801, doi101130gsab49195, doi101144gsjgs13130289, doi101144jgs2015083, doi101146annurevearth33031504103001, doi101146annurevecolsys31179, doi1011861471214812162, doi101371journalpone0052200, doi101666060821, doi10166612056, doi101666121121, doi10182618200049639197506, doi102110scn8415, doi103140bullgeosci1269, doi104202app20100080, doi105281zenodo15992748, doi105860choice284524, doi107312mcme93416"
}

@article{doi101130g397881,
    author = "Slater, Ben J. and Willman, Sebastian and Budd, Graham E. and Peel, John S.",
    title = "Widespread preservation of small carbonaceous fossils (SCFs) in the early Cambrian of North Greenland",
    year = "2017",
    journal = "Geology",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1130/g39788.1",
    doi = "10.1130/g39788.1",
    openalex = "W2772111399",
    references = "doi101017s0094837300009994, doi101038345802a0, doi101073pnas1111784109, doi101093icb431166, doi101111j14754983200700656x, doi101111j150239311995tb01587x, doi101111pala12168, doi101111pala12200, doi101111pala12273, doi101130g24961a1, doi101130g325801, doi1016660094837320020280155lgatio20co2, openalexw1557571618"
}

@article{doi101016jgsf201809010,
    author = "Chen, Feiyang and Zhang, Zhifei and Betts, Marissa J. and Zhang, Zhiliang and Liu, Fan",
    title = "First report on Guanshan Biota (Cambrian Stage 4) at the stratotype area of Wulongqing Formation in Malong County, Eastern Yunnan, China",
    year = "2018",
    journal = "Geoscience Frontiers",
    abstract = "Exceptionally preserved fossils, such as those from Cambrian Burgess Shale-type fossil-Lagerstätten are critical because of their unique contributions to knowledge of the phylogenetic radiation and palaeoecological expansion of metazoans during the Cambrian explosion. Critically, these deposits provide information that is usually unobtainable from shelly and skeletonized fossils alone. The Guanshan Biota (Cambrian Series 2, Stage 4) in the Yunnan Province of South China, has produced abundant and diverse, exquisitely preserved fossils that often retain soft tissues and organs. To date, most fossils from the Guanshan Biota have been collected from localities such as Gaoloufang and Gangtoucun, which have become inaccessible due to new urban expansions and constructions of residential buildings. Here we present the first report of soft bodied fossils from a new section at Kanfuqing, close to the Wulongqing village in Malong County, approximately 3 km east of the Wulongqing Formation stratotype section. Fossils retain soft morphology, and include brachiopods with delicate marginal setae, priapulids with well-preserved sclerites and vetulicolians with entire sections of body. In addition, this fauna includes rare occurrences of trilobites preserved with soft tissues replicated as pyrite pseudomorphs after weathering. This discovery represents an important palaeogeographical extension of soft-bodied fossils of the Guanshan fauna to the east of the Xiaojiang Fault (related to Tsinning tectonic movements ca. 700 Ma). The fauna from the new Kanfuqing section is similar to that reported from the Wulongqing Formation west of the Xiaojiang Fault, and thus has significant implications for early Cambrian palaeogeography, faunal successions and palaeoenvironments of eastern Yunnan. Keywords: Guanshan Biota, Early Cambrian, Xiaojiang Fault, Eastern Yunnan, Palaeoenvironment, Palaeogeography",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gsf.2018.09.010",
    doi = "10.1016/j.gsf.2018.09.010",
    openalex = "W2899533842",
    references = "doi101007s114340140419y, doi101016jearscirev201510015, doi101038srep14810, doi103140bullgeosci1269"
}

@article{doi101017jpa20186,
    author = "Schroeder, Natalie I. and Paterson, John R. and Brock, Glenn A.",
    title = "Eldonioids with associated trace fossils from the lower Cambrian Emu Bay Shale Konservat-Lagerstätte of South Australia",
    year = "2018",
    journal = "Journal of Paleontology",
    abstract = "Abstract Rare specimens of eldonioids recovered from the lower Cambrian (Series 2, Stage 4) Emu Bay Shale (EBS) Konservat-Lagerstätte represent the first record of the group for the Cambrian of East Gondwana. The disc-shaped body of the EBS taxon bears fine concentric corrugations on the dorsal surface and, ventrally, a series of internal lobes that have primary and secondary bifurcations, as well as a coiled sac. It appears to be most similar to Rotadiscus and Pararotadiscus of the Cambrian Chengjiang and Kaili biotas of South China, respectively. While the structure of the internal lobes would indicate that this occurrence in the EBS represents a new taxon within the Rotadiscidae, lack of detail regarding the precise number of internal lobes and the condition of the circumoral tentacles warrants a more conservative approach in leaving the genus and species under open nomenclature. The EBS specimens also host trace fossils, including the remains of a burrow, which are generally lacking in the body-fossil-bearing layers of the Konservat-Lagerstätte interval. These traces appear to have been made by small organisms and are similar to traces associated with the discs of Pararotadiscus guizhouensis (Zhao and Zhu, 1994) from the Kaili Biota. The available taphonomic, paleoenvironmental, and ichnological evidence indicates that the EBS eldonioids are most likely vagrants that were transported or settled into the ‘preservational trap’ and subsequently exposed on the substrate for a brief period before burial, thereby allowing organisms to exploit their carcasses for nutrients or other purposes.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1017/jpa.2018.6",
    doi = "10.1017/jpa.2018.6",
    openalex = "W2771766305",
    references = "doi101080104209402012703626"
}

@article{doi101073pnas1719962115,
    author = "Daley, Allison C. and Antcliffe, Jonathan B. and Drage, Harriet B. and Pates, Stephen",
    title = "Early fossil record of Euarthropoda and the Cambrian Explosion",
    year = "2018",
    journal = "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences",
    abstract = "Euarthropoda is one of the best-preserved fossil animal groups and has been the most diverse animal phylum for over 500 million years. Fossil Konservat-Lagerstätten, such as Burgess Shale-type deposits (BSTs), show the evolution of the euarthropod stem lineage during the Cambrian from 518 million years ago (Ma). The stem lineage includes nonbiomineralized groups, such as Radiodonta (e.g., Anomalocaris) that provide insight into the step-by-step construction of euarthropod morphology, including the exoskeleton, biramous limbs, segmentation, and cephalic structures. Trilobites are crown group euarthropods that appear in the fossil record at 521 Ma, before the stem lineage fossils, implying a ghost lineage that needs to be constrained. These constraints come from the trace fossil record, which show the first evidence for total group Euarthropoda (e.g., Cruziana, Rusophycus) at around 537 Ma. A deep Precambrian root to the euarthropod evolutionary lineage is disproven by a comparison of Ediacaran and Cambrian lagerstätten. BSTs from the latest Ediacaran Period (e.g., Miaohe biota, 550 Ma) are abundantly fossiliferous with algae but completely lack animals, which are also missing from other Ediacaran windows, such as phosphate deposits (e.g., Doushantuo, 560 Ma). This constrains the appearance of the euarthropod stem lineage to no older than 550 Ma. While each of the major types of fossil evidence (BSTs, trace fossils, and biomineralized preservation) have their limitations and are incomplete in different ways, when taken together they allow a coherent picture to emerge of the origin and subsequent radiation of total group Euarthropoda during the Cambrian.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1719962115",
    doi = "10.1073/pnas.1719962115",
    openalex = "W2803773655",
    references = "doi101016b9780444594259000196, doi101016jcub201509066, doi101016jearscirev201303008, doi101016jearscirev201606008, doi101016jearscirev201707017, doi101016jpalwor200610005, doi101017s000632310000548x, doi101017s1089332600002837, doi101038376053a0, doi101038nature07673, doi101038nature10689, doi101038nature11874, doi101038nature12520, doi101038nature13414, doi101038nature14256, doi101038ncomms3485, doi101073pnas1111784109, doi101098rstb19750033, doi101098rstb20140313, doi101111brv12168, doi101111j10960031201200413x, doi101126science1107765, doi101126science1169514, doi101126science1206375, doi101126science2745287568, doi101144gsjgs14940607, doi101146annurevearth33092203122519, doi101186s1286201710887, doi101666061301, doi10166612056"
}

@article{doi101098rsos172206,
    author = "Vannier, Jean and Aria, Cédric and Taylor, Rod S. and Caron, Jean‐Bernard",
    title = "Waptia fieldensis Walcott, a mandibulate arthropod from the middle Cambrian Burgess Shale",
    year = "2018",
    journal = "Royal Society Open Science",
    abstract = "was an active swimming predator of soft prey items, using its anterior appendages for food capture and manipulation, and also potentially for clinging to epibenthic substrates.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.172206",
    doi = "10.1098/rsos.172206",
    openalex = "W2809290942",
    references = "doi1010079780387771014, doi101016jcub201511020, doi101038417271a, doi101038nature08742, doi101046j1525142x200202034x, doi101080106351501753462876, doi101093sysbiosys029, doi101098rspb20100590, doi1011111475498300229, doi10118617429994729, doi101186s1286201710887, doi101371journalpone0124979, doi1023073515467"
}

@article{doi101098rspb20181935,
    author = "Bicknell, Russell D. C. and Ledogar, Justin A. and Wroe, Stephen and Gutzler, Benjamin C. and Watson, Winsor H. and Paterson, John R.",
    title = "Computational biomechanical analyses demonstrate similar shell-crushing abilities in modern and ancient arthropods",
    year = "2018",
    journal = "Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences",
    abstract = "The biology of the American horseshoe crab, Limulus polyphemus, is well documented-including its dietary habits, particularly the ability to crush shell with gnathobasic walking appendages-but virtually nothing is known about the feeding biomechanics of this iconic arthropod. Limulus polyphemus is also considered the archetypal functional analogue of various extinct groups with serial gnathobasic appendages, including eurypterids, trilobites and other early arthropods, especially Sidneyia inexpectans from the mid-Cambrian (508 Myr) Burgess Shale of Canada. Exceptionally preserved specimens of S. inexpectans show evidence suggestive of durophagous (shell-crushing) tendencies-including thick gnathobasic spine cuticle and shelly gut contents-but the masticatory capabilities of this fossil species have yet to be compared with modern durophagous arthropods. Here, we use advanced computational techniques, specifically a unique application of 3D finite-element analysis (FEA), to model the feeding mechanics of L. polyphemus and S. inexpectans: the first such analyses of a modern horseshoe crab and a fossil arthropod. Results show that mechanical performance of the feeding appendages in both arthropods is remarkably similar, suggesting that S. inexpectans had similar shell-crushing capabilities to L. polyphemus This biomechanical solution to processing shelly food therefore has a history extending over 500 Myr, arising soon after the first shell-bearing animals. Arrival of durophagous predators during the early phase of animal evolution undoubtedly fuelled the Cambrian 'arms race' that involved a rapid increase in diversity, disparity and abundance of biomineralized prey species.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2018.1935",
    doi = "10.1098/rspb.2018.1935",
    openalex = "W2898586552",
    references = "doi101016jasd201509003, doi101016jasd201712001, doi101111brv12365"
}

@article{doi101111pala12350,
    author = "Slater, Ben J. and Harvey, Thomas H. P. and Butterfield, Nicholas J.",
    title = "Small carbonaceous fossils (SCF s) from the T erreneuvian (lower C ambrian) of B altica",
    year = "2018",
    journal = "Palaeontology",
    abstract = "Abstract We describe a new assemblage of small carbonaceous fossils (SCF s) from diagenetically minimally altered clays and siltstones of Terreneuvian age from the Lontova and Voosi formations of Estonia, Lithuania and Russia. This is the first detailed account of an SCF assemblage from the Terreneuvian and includes a number of previously undocumented Cambrian organisms. Recognizably bilaterian‐derived SCF s include abundant protoconodonts (total‐group Chaetognatha), and distinctive cuticular spines of scalidophoran worms. Alongside these metazoan remains are a range of protistan‐grade fossils, including Retiranus balticus gen. et sp. nov., a distinctive funnel‐shaped or sheet‐like problematicum characterized by terminal or marginal vesicles, and Lontohystrichosphaera grandis gen. et sp. nov., a large (100–550 μm) ornamented vesicular microfossil. Together these data offer a fundamentally enriched view of Terreneuvian life in the epicratonic seas of Baltica, from an episode where records of non‐biomineralized life are currently sparse. Even so, the recovered assemblages contain a lower diversity of metazoans than SCF biotas from younger (Stage 4) Baltic successions that represent broadly equivalent environments, echoing the diversification signal recorded in the coeval shelly and trace‐fossil records. Close comparison to the biostratigraphical signal from Fortunian small shelly fossils supports a late Fortunian age for most of the Lontova/Voosi succession, rather than a younger (wholly Stage 2) range.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1111/pala.12350",
    doi = "10.1111/pala.12350",
    openalex = "W2790386000",
    references = "doi101017s000632310000548x, doi10103835083562, doi101038nature04890, doi10108003115519508619270, doi101093icb431219, doi101098rstb20061843, doi101111j150239311994tb01558x, doi101111pala12168, doi101111pala12273, doi101111pala12325, doi101130b303461, doi101130g397881, doi1023071352224, openalexw1557571618, openalexw2273650796"
}

@article{doi1028991esj201801151,
    author = "Schoenemann, Brigitte",
    title = "Evolution of Eye Reduction and Loss in Trilobites and Some Related Fossil Arthropods",
    year = "2018",
    journal = "Emerging Science Journal",
    abstract = "The fossil record of arthropod compound eyes reflects different modes and occasions of eye reduction and blindness. In the best-studied fossil examples, the trilobites [trilobites: extinct arthropods, dominant during the Palaeozoic], which have an excellent geological record, eyes are primary structures, and in all known genera which lack them, eye-loss is always secondary. Once the eyes were lost, they never were never re-established. The most striking examples occur in the Upper Devonian, when two unrelated major groups of trilobites, with different kinds of eyes, underwent eye reduction and even total loss of the eyes over the same time period, undoubtedly due to long-term environmental change. One reason is that a mud blanket spread over a vast area, there was no firm substrate, and many trilobites became small and many became endobenthic, reducing or losing their eyes in the process. Toxic environmental conditions may also have had an effect. Certain coeval forms remained, however, which still possess perfectly good compound eyes. Either they found vacant refuges where they could survive, or alternatively their visual systems were elaborate enough to adapt to the changing conditions. Another inducement for evolving small, reduced compound eyes is to become a tiny organism oneself, with simply not enough space to establish a regular and functional compound eye, and in such minaturised eyes special adaptations for capturing enough photons are necessary. Thus very small compound eyes often establish wide acceptance angles of their ommatidia, collecting light over large angular ranges of space and it is beneficial to have a wide rhabdom provided that it is short, has a wide lens diameter, and perhaps even possess highly sensitive receptor cells. We find such a miniaturised system in the first recorded planktonic trilobite. Another kind of reduction of a compound eye, or parts of it, also occurs, if selective pressure claims for a high specialisation of eyes that results in several facets fusing into a single functional unit. This probably can be found in phacopid trilobites, \textasciitilde 400 million years old. Here the enlarged aperture of a resulting large lens may allow vision under dim light conditions such as at greater depth. The fossil record gives relatively little evidence about parasites, which often have reduced eyes. Agnostida are blind relatives of trilobites which lived during the Cambrian and Ordovician. An early suggestion was that some of these were parasitic, but this was never commonly adopted. Finally penstastomids (Crustacea), worm-like parasitic organisms, already have been blind from the Cambrian (\textasciitilde 487Ma).",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.28991/esj-2018-01151",
    doi = "10.28991/esj-2018-01151",
    openalex = "W2898839664",
    references = "doi101073pnas1716824114"
}

@article{doi101016jearscirev201902020,
    author = "Klompmaker, Adiël A. and Kelley, Patricia H. and Chattopadhyay, Devapriya and Clements, Jeff C. and Huntley, John Warren and Kowalewski, Michał",
    title = "Predation in the marine fossil record: Studies, data, recognition, environmental factors, and behavior",
    year = "2019",
    journal = "Earth-Science Reviews",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.earscirev.2019.02.020",
    doi = "10.1016/j.earscirev.2019.02.020",
    openalex = "W2917611271",
    references = "doi101016001669959180043y, doi1010160195667182900416, doi101016jpalaeo200909010, doi101016jpalwor201104001, doi101016s001282520300014x, doi101080027246342011601714, doi101111j150239312002tb00062x, doi101111pala12042, doi101111pala12254, doi101146annureves10110179001551, doi101371journalpone0052200, morris1979the"
}

@article{doi101038s415860191473z,
    author = "Lindgren, Johan and Nilsson, Dan-Eric and Sjövall, Peter and Jarenmark, Martin and Ito, Shosuke and Wakamatsu, Kazumasa and Kear, Benjamin P. and Schultz, Bo Pagh and SYLVESTERSEN, RENÉ L. and Madsen, Henrik and LaFountain, James R. and Alwmark, C. and Eriksson, Mats E. and Hall, Stephen A. and Lindgren, P. and Rodríguez‐Meizoso, Irene and Ahlberg, Per",
    title = "Fossil insect eyes shed light on trilobite optics and the arthropod pigment screen",
    year = "2019",
    journal = "Nature",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1473-z",
    doi = "10.1038/s41586-019-1473-z",
    openalex = "W2968527992",
    references = "doi101073pnas1716824114"
}

@article{doi101038s4158601915254,
    author = "Aria, Cédric and Caron, Jean-Bernard",
    title = "A middle Cambrian arthropod with chelicerae and proto-book gills.",
    year = "2019",
    journal = "Nature",
    abstract = "The chelicerates are a ubiquitous and speciose group of animals that has a considerable ecological effect on modern terrestrial ecosystems-notably as predators of insects and also, for instance, as decomposers1. The fossil record shows that chelicerates diversified early in the marine ecosystems of the Palaeozoic era, by at least the Ordovician period2. However, the timing of chelicerate origins and the type of body plan that characterized the earliest members of this group have remained controversial. Although megacheirans3-5 have previously been interpreted as chelicerate-like, and habeliidans6 (including Sanctacaris7,8) have been suggested to belong to their immediate stem lineage, evidence for the specialized feeding appendages (chelicerae) that are diagnostic of the chelicerates has been lacking. Here we use exceptionally well-preserved and abundant fossil material from the middle Cambrian Burgess Shale (Marble Canyon, British Columbia, Canada) to show that Mollisonia plenovenatrix sp. nov. possessed robust but short chelicerae that were placed very anteriorly, between the eyes. This suggests that chelicerae evolved a specialized feeding function early on, possibly as a modification of short antennules. The head also encompasses a pair of large compound eyes, followed by three pairs of long, uniramous walking legs and three pairs of stout, gnathobasic masticatory appendages; this configuration links habeliidans with euchelicerates ('true' chelicerates, excluding the sea spiders). The trunk ends in a four-segmented pygidium and bears eleven pairs of identical limbs, each of which is composed of three broad lamellate exopod flaps, and endopods are either reduced or absent. These overlapping exopod flaps resemble euchelicerate book gills, although they lack the diagnostic operculum9. In addition, the eyes of M. plenovenatrix were innervated by three optic neuropils, which strengthens the view that a complex malacostracan-like visual system10,11 might have been plesiomorphic for all crown euarthropods. These fossils thus show that chelicerates arose alongside mandibulates12 as benthic micropredators, at the heart of the Cambrian explosion.",
    url = "https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31511691/",
    doi = "10.1038/s41586-019-1525-4",
    openalex = "W2972754927",
    pmid = "31511691",
    references = "doi101016jasd201507005, doi101038nature09038, doi101038nature11495, doi101038nature20804, doi101038ncomms4210, doi101073pnas1819366116, doi101080106351501753462876, doi101093sysbiosys029, doi101098rsos172206, doi101111j14754983201101124x, doi101130g24961a1, doi101186s1286201710887, openalexw645459046"
}

@article{doi101098rsos172074,
    author = "Mángano, M. Gabriela and Hawkes, Chris and Caron, Jean‐Bernard",
    title = "Trace fossils associated with Burgess Shale non-biomineralized carapaces: bringing taphonomic and ecological controls into focus",
    year = "2019",
    journal = "Royal Society Open Science",
    abstract = "garden hypothesis, the bacterially enriched surface of carapaces provides opportunities for intricate ecologic interactions among trophic levels. In the taphonomic shielding hypothesis, the trace fossil-carapace association results from preferential preservation of traces as controlled by compaction independent of any association in life. In an attempt to better understand the role of the carapace as a medium for preservation of trace fossils and to evaluate the effects of mechanical stress related to burial, a numerical model was developed. Results indicate that the carapace can shield underlying sediment from mechanical stress for a finite time, differentially protecting trace fossils during the initial phase of burial and compaction. However, this taphonomic model alone fails to fully explain relatively high-density assemblages displaying a diversity of structures spatially confined within the perimeter of carapaces or branching patterns recording re-visitation.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.172074",
    doi = "10.1098/rsos.172074",
    openalex = "W2909311523",
    references = "doi101080104209402012703626"
}

@article{doi101098rspb20190791,
    author = "Wang, Deng and Vannier, Jean and Schumann, Isabell and Wang, Xing and Yang, Xiaoguang and Komiya, Tsuyoshi and Uesugi, Kentaro and Sun, Jie and Han, Jian",
    title = "Origin of ecdysis: fossil evidence from 535-million-year-old scalidophoran worms",
    year = "2019",
    journal = "Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences",
    abstract = "With millions of extant species, ecdysozoans (Scalidophora, Nematoida and Panarthropoda) constitute a major portion of present-day biodiversity. All ecdysozoans secrete an exoskeletal cuticle which must be moulted periodically and replaced by a larger one. Although moulting (ecdysis) has been recognized in early Palaeozoic panarthropods such as trilobites and basal groups such as anomalocaridids and lobopodians, the fossil record lacks clear evidence of ecdysis in early scalidophorans, largely because of difficulties in recognizing true exuviae. Here, we describe two types of exuviae in microscopic scalidophoran worms from the lowermost Cambrian Kuanchuanpu Formation (ca 535 Ma) of China and reconstruct their moulting process. These basal scalidophorans moulted in a manner similar to that of extant priapulid worms, extricating themselves smoothly from their old tubular cuticle or turning their exuviae inside out like the finger of a glove. This is the oldest record of moulting in ecdysozoans. We also discuss the origin of ecdysis in the light of recent molecular analyses and the significance of moulting in the early evolution of animals.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2019.0791",
    doi = "10.1098/rspb.2019.0791",
    openalex = "W2961801465",
    references = "doi101098rspb20182505, doi101126scienceaau8800"
}

@article{doi101098rspb20191079,
    author = "Moysiuk, J. and Caron, Jean‐Bernard",
    title = "A new hurdiid radiodont from the Burgess Shale evinces the exploitation of Cambrian infaunal food sources",
    year = "2019",
    journal = "Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences",
    abstract = "Radiodonts, a clade of Cambro-Devonian stem group euarthropods, have classically been regarded as nektonic apex predators. However, many aspects of radiodont morphology and ecology have remained unclear because of the typically fragmentary nature of fossil material. Here, we describe a new hurdiid radiodont based on abundant and exceptionally well-preserved fossils from the Burgess Shale (Marble Canyon area, British Columbia, Canada). Cambroraster falcatus gen. et sp. nov. is characterized by an extra-large horseshoe-shaped head carapace, bearing conspicuous posterolateral spinous processes, and partially covering a short trunk with eight pairs of lateral flaps. Each of the pair of frontal appendages possess five mesially curving rake-like endites equipped with a series of anteriorly directed hooked spines, altogether surrounding the oral cone. This feeding apparatus suggests a micro to macrophagous sediment-sifting feeding ecology. Cambroraster illuminates the evolution of Hurdiidae and evinces the exploitation of the diversifying infauna by these large and specialized nektobenthic carnivores in the aftermath of the Cambrian explosion.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2019.1079",
    doi = "10.1098/rspb.2019.1079",
    openalex = "W2965739174",
    references = "doi101038nature13486, doi101038nature14256, doi101038s415590160022, doi101080106351501753462876, doi101080147720192012732723, doi101093molbevmsu300, doi101093sysbiosys029, doi1011111475498300080, doi101111j10960031200700161x, doi101126science1169514, doi101371journalpone0124979, doi105860choice420301, openalexw2611511275"
}

@article{doi101098rspb20192370,
    author = "Ortega‐Hernández, Javier and Lerosey‐Aubril, Rudy and Pates, Stephen",
    title = "Proclivity of nervous system preservation in Cambrian Burgess Shale-type deposits",
    year = "2019",
    journal = "Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences",
    abstract = "Recent investigations on neurological tissues preserved in Cambrian fossils have clarified the phylogenetic affinities and head segmentation in pivotal members of stem-group Euarthropoda. However, palaeoneuroanatomical features are often incomplete or described from single exceptional specimens, raising concerns about the morphological interpretation of fossilized neurological structures and their significance for early euarthropod evolution. Here, we describe the central nervous system (CNS) of the short great-appendage euarthropod Alalcomenaeus based on material from two Cambrian Burgess Shale-type deposits of the American Great Basin, the Pioche Formation (Stage 4) and the Marjum Formation (Drumian). The specimens reveal complementary ventral and lateral views of the CNS, preserved as a dark carbonaceous compression throughout the body. The head features a dorsal brain connected to four stalked ventral eyes, and four pairs of segmental nerves. The first to seventh trunk tergites overlie a ventral nerve cord with seven ganglia, each associated with paired sets of segmental nerve bundles. Posteriorly, the nerve cord features elongate thread-like connectives. The Great Basin fossils strengthen the original description-and broader evolutionary implications-of the CNS in Alalcomenaeus from the early Cambrian (Stage 3) Chengjiang deposit of South China. The spatio-temporal recurrence of fossilized neural tissues in Cambrian Konservat-Lagerstätten across North America (Pioche, Burgess Shale, Marjum) and South China (Chengjiang, Xiaoshiba) indicates that their preservation is consistent with the mechanism of Burgess Shale-type fossilization, without the need to invoke alternative taphonomic pathways or the presence of microbial biofilms.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2019.2370",
    doi = "10.1098/rspb.2019.2370",
    openalex = "W2994943484",
    references = "briggs2003the, doi101038nature10689, doi101038nature11495, doi101038nature13486, doi10108000241160410004764, doi101098rsos172206, doi101098rstb20140313, doi101111j14754983200700656x, doi101111j150239311995tb01587x, doi101126scienceaau8800, doi1016660094837320020280155lgatio20co2, openalexw2138270429"
}

@article{doi101126scienceaau8800,
    author = "Fu, Dongjing and Tong, Guanghui and Dai, Tao and Liu, Wei and Yang, Yuning and Zhang, Yuan and Cui, Linhao and Li, Luoyang and Yun, Hao and Wu, Yu and Sun, Ao and Liu, Cong and Pei, Wenrui and Gaines, Robert R. and Zhang, Xingliang",
    title = "The Qingjiang biota—A Burgess Shale–type fossil Lagerstätte from the early Cambrian of South China",
    year = "2019",
    journal = "Science",
    abstract = "Burgess Shale-type fossil Lagerstätten provide the best evidence for deciphering the biotic patterns and magnitude of the Cambrian explosion. Here, we report a Lagerstätte from South China, the Qingjiang biota (\textasciitilde 518 million years old), which is dominated by soft-bodied taxa from a distal shelf setting. The Qingjiang biota is distinguished by pristine carbonaceous preservation of labile organic features, a very high proportion of new taxa (\textasciitilde 53\%), and preliminary taxonomic diversity that suggests it could rival the Chengjiang and Burgess Shale biotas. Defining aspects of the Qingjiang biota include a high abundance of cnidarians, including both medusoid and polypoid forms; new taxa resembling extant kinorhynchs; and abundant larval or juvenile forms. This distinctive composition holds promise for providing insights into the evolution of Cambrian ecosystems across environmental gradients.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aau8800",
    doi = "10.1126/science.aau8800",
    openalex = "W2923733494",
    references = "doi1010029781118896372, doi101007s114340140419y, doi1010160016703795000382, doi101016b9780444594259000196, doi101016jearscirev201707017, doi101016jpalwor201510001, doi101017s108933260000276x, doi101038nature11874, doi101038ncomms4210, doi101073pnas1111784109, doi101073pnas1719962115, doi101111j14754983200700656x, doi101130g24961a1, doi101144jgs1582211, doi101144jgs2015083, doi10166612056, doi102110palo2009p09004r"
}

@article{doi101002spp21347,
    author = "Wallet, Elise and Slater, Ben J. and Willman, Sebastian and Peel, John S.",
    title = "Small carbonaceous fossils (SCF s) from North Greenland: new light on metazoan diversity in early Cambrian shelf environments",
    year = "2020",
    journal = "Papers in Palaeontology",
    abstract = "Abstract The Sirius Passet Lagerstätte of North Greenland is one of the oldest records of soft‐bodied metazoan‐dominated ecosystems from the early Cambrian. The Lagerstätte site itself is restricted to just a single c. 1‐km‐long outcrop located offshore from the shelf margin, in an area affected by metamorphic alteration during the Ellesmerian Orogeny (Devonian – Early Carboniferous). The recent recovery of small carbonaceous fossils (SCF s) to the south, in areas that escaped the effects of this deformation, has substantially expanded the known coverage of organic preservation into shallower water depositional settings in this region. Here, we describe additional SCF assemblages from the siliciclastic shelf succession of the Buen Formation (Cambrian Series 2, stages 3–4; c. 515 Ma), expanding the previously documented SCF biota. Newly recovered material indicates a rich diversity of non‐mineralizing metazoans, chiefly represented by arthropod remains. These include the filtering and grinding elements of a sophisticated crustacean feeding apparatus (the oldest crustacean remains reported to date), alongside an assortment of bradoriid sclerites, including almost complete, 3D valves, which tie together a number of SCF s previously found in isolation. Other metazoan remains include various trilobite cuticles, diverse scalidophoran sclerites, and a range of metazoan fragments of uncertain affinity. This shallower water assemblage differs substantially from the Sirius Passet biota, which is dominated by problematic euarthropod stem‐group members and sponges. Although some of these discrepancies are attributable to taphonomic or temporal factors, these lateral variations in taxonomic composition also point to significant palaeoenvironmental and/or palaeoecological controls on early Cambrian metazoan communities.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1002/spp2.1347",
    doi = "10.1002/spp2.1347",
    openalex = "W3113094484",
    references = "doi101002spp21112, doi101002spp21347, doi101016b9780444594259000196, doi101017s0094837300009994, doi101038nature06614, doi101038s4146701702088w, doi101046j1525142x2001003003170x, doi101098rstb19950029, doi101111pala12350, doi101130g397881, doi101144jgs2019043, doi10182618200374874199301, doi1026879424, doi103140bullgeosci1158, doi107312zhur10612, hofmann2019diversity, openalexw1524002895"
}

@article{doi101016jearscirev2020103409,
    author = "Du, Kun‐sheng and Ortega‐Hernández, Javier and Yang, Jie and Yang, X. C. and Guo, Qing-hao and Li, Wei and He, Ji-feng and Li, Ke-ren and Du, Jialin and Hou, Jin‐bo and Zhang, Xiguang",
    title = "A new early Cambrian Konservat-Lagerstätte expands the occurrence of Burgess Shale-type deposits on the Yangtze Platform",
    year = "2020",
    journal = "Earth-Science Reviews",
    abstract = "We report the Fandian biota, a new Konservat-Lagerstätte from the Cambrian Stage 3 Yuxiansi and Jiulaodong Formations in Sichuan, South China, with close faunal links to the Chengjiang biota in Yunnan. The biodiversity of the Fandian biota includes total-group euarthropods (radiodonts, bivalved forms, acercostracans, trilobites, non-biomineralized trilobitomorphs), armoured lobopodians, palaeoscolecids, pedunculate brachiopods, hyoliths, chancelloriids, sponges, and filamentous algae. Benthic dwellers dominate the fossil community (e.g. trilobitomorphs, brachiopods, sponges), with rare instances of nektonic (radiodonts, bivalved euarthropods) and infaunal (palaeoscolecids) organisms. The Fandian biota contains soft-bodied taxa that were only known from Chengjiang and Xiaoshiba until now, namely Primicaris (acercostracan), Xandarella (non-trilobite trilobitomorph) and Mafangscolex (palaeoscolecid), expanding the distribution of these previously endemic taxa beyond Yunnan to the northern Yangtze Platform during the Cambrian Stage 3. Our findings provide a more comprehensive understanding of early Cambrian biodiversity that inhabited the Yangtze Platform over a substantially greater palaeobiogeographic distribution than previously considered.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.earscirev.2020.103409",
    doi = "10.1016/j.earscirev.2020.103409",
    openalex = "W3093022371",
    references = "doi101144jgs2019043"
}

@article{doi101017pab201942,
    author = "Nanglu, Karma and Caron, Jean‐Bernard and Gaines, Robert R.",
    title = "The Burgess Shale paleocommunity with new insights from Marble Canyon, British Columbia",
    year = "2020",
    journal = "Paleobiology",
    abstract = "Abstract The middle (Wuliuan Stage) Cambrian Burgess Shale is famous for its exceptional preservation of diverse and abundant soft-bodied animals through the “thick” Stephen Formation. However, with the exception of the Walcott Quarry (Fossil Ridge) and the stratigraphically older Tulip Beds (Mount Stephen), which are both in Yoho National Park (British Columbia), quantitative assessments of the Burgess Shale have remained limited. Here we first provide a detailed quantitative overview of the diversity and structure of the Marble Canyon Burgess Shale locality based on 16,438 specimens. Located 40 km southeast of the Walcott Quarry in Kootenay National Park (British Columbia), Marble Canyon represents the youngest site of the “thick” Stephen Formation. We then combine paleoecological data sets from Marble Canyon, Walcott Quarry, Tulip Beds, and Raymond Quarry, which lies approximately 20 m directly above the Walcott Quarry, to yield a combined species abundance data set of 77,179 specimens encompassing 234 species-level taxa. Marble Canyon shows significant temporal changes in both taxonomic and ecological groups, suggesting periods of stasis followed by rapid turnover patterns at local and short temporal scales. At wider geographic and temporal scales, the different Burgess Shale sites occupy distinct areas in multivariate space. Overall, this suggests that the Burgess Shale paleocommunity is far patchier than previously thought and varies at both local and regional scales through the “thick” Stephen Formation. This underscores that our understanding of Cambrian diversity and ecological networks, particularly in early animal ecosystems, remains limited and highly dependent on new discoveries.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1017/pab.2019.42",
    doi = "10.1017/pab.2019.42",
    openalex = "W3008824536",
    references = "doi101016jpalwor200610005, doi101017cbo9780511623332, doi101017s1089332600002837, doi101038nature13414, doi101038ncomms4210, doi101038s4158601915254, doi101111j14429993200501502x, doi101111j14610248200500871x, doi101126science13134091292, doi101146annureves15110184002033, doi101186s1291501602714, doi101371journalpone0029233, doi101371journalpone0052200, doi101371journalpone0124979, doi10166612056, doi1018900012965820020831771tuntob20co2, doi102110palo2003p05070r, doi1023071931600, doi1023071933500, doi1023073071998, doi105860choice421547"
}

@article{doi101073pnas1920733117,
    author = "Edgecombe, Gregory D. and Strullu‐Derrien, Christine and Góral, Tomasz and Hetherington, Alexander J. and Thompson, Christine and Koch, Markus",
    title = "Aquatic stem group myriapods close a gap between molecular divergence dates and the terrestrial fossil record",
    year = "2020",
    journal = "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences",
    abstract = "from the Rhynie and Windyfield cherts hot spring complex in Scotland, reveals details of head structures that constrain the evolutionary position of euthycarcinoids. The head capsule houses an anterior cuticular tentorium, a feature uniquely shared by myriapods and hexapods. Confocal microscopy recovers myriapod-like characters of the preoral chamber, such as a prominent hypopharynx supported by tentorial bars and superlinguae between the mandibles and hypopharynx, reinforcing an alliance between euthycarcinoids and myriapods recovered in recent phylogenetic analysis. The Cambrian occurrence of the earliest euthycarcinoids supplies the oldest compelling evidence for an aquatic stem group for either Myriapoda or Hexapoda, previously a lacuna in the body fossil record of these otherwise terrestrial lineages until the Silurian and Devonian, respectively. The trace fossil record of euthycarcinoids in the Cambrian and Ordovician reveals amphibious locomotion in tidal environments and fills a gap between molecular estimates for myriapod origins in the Cambrian and a post-Ordovician crown group fossil record.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1920733117",
    doi = "10.1073/pnas.1920733117",
    openalex = "W3014649191",
    references = "doi101186s1286201915607"
}

@article{doi101098rsfs20190103,
    author = "Mángano, M. Gabriela and Buatois, Luís A.",
    title = "The rise and early evolution of animals: where do we stand from a trace-fossil perspective?",
    year = "2020",
    journal = "Interface Focus",
    abstract = "The trace-fossil record provides a wealth of information to track the rise and early evolution of animals. It comprises the activity of both hard- and soft-bodied organisms, is continuous through the Ediacaran (635-539 Ma)- Cambrian (539-485 Ma) transition, yields insights into animal behaviour and their role as ecosystem engineers, and allows for a more refined characterization of palaeoenvironmental context. In order to unravel macroevolutionary signals from the trace-fossil record, a variety of approaches is available, including not only estimation of degree of bioturbation, but also analysis of ichnodiversity and ichnodisparity trajectories, and evaluation of the occupation of infaunal ecospace and styles of ecosystem engineering. Analysis of the trace-fossil record demonstrates the presence of motile benthic bilaterians in the Ediacaran, mostly feeding from biofilms. Although Ediacaran trace fossils are simple and emplaced at or immediately below the sediment surface, an increase in ichnofossil complexity, predation pressure, sediment disturbance and penetration depth is apparent during the terminal Ediacaran. Regardless of this increase, a dramatic rise in trace fossil diversity and disparity took place during the earliest Cambrian, underscoring that the novelty of the Fortunian (539-529 Ma) cannot be underestimated. The Fortunian still shows the persistence of an Ediacaran-style matground ecology, but is fundamentally characterized by the appearance of new trace-fossil architectural plans reflecting novel ways of interacting with the substrate. The appearance of Phanerozoic-style benthic ecosystems attests to an increased length and connectivity of the food web and improved efficiency in organic carbon transfer and nutrient recycling. A profound reorganization of the infaunal ecospace is recorded in both high-energy sand-dominated nearshore areas and low-energy mud-dominated offshore environments, during the early Cambrian, starting approximately during Cambrian Age 2 (529-521 Ma), but continuing during the rest of the early Cambrian. A model comprising four evolutionary phases is proposed to synthetize information from the Ediacaran-Cambrian trace-fossil record. The use of a rich ichnological toolbox; critical, systematic and comprehensive evaluation of the Ediacaran-Cambrian trace-fossil record; and high-resolution integration of the ichnological dataset and sedimentological information show that the advent of biogenic mixing was an important factor in fully marine environments at the dawn of the Phanerozoic.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1098/rsfs.2019.0103",
    doi = "10.1098/rsfs.2019.0103",
    openalex = "W3034547097",
    references = "doi101016jjafrearsci200703004, doi101016jpalaeo201003048, doi101016jprecamres201609016, doi101038s41467019088373, doi101073pnas1719962115, doi101098rspb20182505, doi101111pala12273, doi101111ter12368, doi101126scienceaau8800, doi101371journalpone0052200"
}

@article{doi101098rsfs20190105,
    author = "Porter, Susannah M.",
    title = "Insights into eukaryogenesis from the fossil record",
    year = "2020",
    journal = "Interface Focus",
    abstract = "Eukaryogenesis-the process by which the eukaryotic cell emerged-has long puzzled scientists. It has been assumed that the fossil record has little to say about this process, in part because important characters such as the nucleus and mitochondria are rarely preserved, and in part because the prevailing model of early eukaryotes implies that eukaryogenesis occurred before the appearance of the first eukaryotes recognized in the fossil record. Here, I propose a different scenario for early eukaryote evolution than is widely assumed. Rather than crown group eukaryotes originating in the late Paleoproterozoic and remaining ecologically minor components for more than half a billion years in a prokaryote-dominated world, I argue for a late Mesoproterozoic origin of the eukaryotic crown group, implying that eukaryogenesis can be studied using the fossil record. I review the proxy records of four crown group characters: the capacity to form cysts as evidenced by the presence of excystment structures; a complex cytoskeleton as evidenced by spines or pylomes; sterol synthesis as evidenced by steranes; and aerobic respiration-and therefore mitochondria-as evidenced by eukaryotes living in oxic environments, and argue that it might be possible to use these proxy records to infer the order in which these characters evolved. The records indicate that both cyst formation and a complex cytoskeleton appeared by late Paleoproterozoic time, and sterol synthesis appeared in the late Mesoproterozioc or early Neoproterozoic. The origin of aerobic respiration cannot as easily be pinned down, but current evidence permits the possibility that it evolved sometime in the Mesoproterozoic.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1098/rsfs.2019.0105",
    doi = "10.1098/rsfs.2019.0105",
    openalex = "W3034734463",
    references = "doi101016jprecamres201704042, doi101017jpa201657, doi101093icbicy088"
}

@article{doi101186s1286201915607,
    author = "Aria, Cédric and Zhao, Fangchen and Zeng, Han and Guo, Jin and Zhu, Maoyan",
    title = "Fossils from South China redefine the ancestral euarthropod body plan",
    year = "2020",
    journal = "BMC Evolutionary Biology",
    abstract = "Sklerolibyon and other jianfengiids expand the disparity of megacheirans and suggest that the common euarthropod ancestor possessed a remarkable phenotypic variability associated with the externalized cephalon, as well as endopods that were already heptopodomerous, which differs from previous hypotheses and observations. These animals also demonstrate that the frontalmost pair of arthrodized appendage is homologous between radiodontans and megacheirans, refuting the claim that the radiodontan frontal appendages evolved into the euarthropod labrum, and questioning its protocerebral identity. This evidence based on external anatomy now constitutes a solid benchmark upon which we should address issues of homology, with the help of carefully examined palaeoneurological data.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1186/s12862-019-1560-7",
    doi = "10.1186/s12862-019-1560-7",
    openalex = "W3013665041",
    references = "doi101007s0042700600854, doi101038417271a, doi101038nature08742, doi101038ncomms3485, doi101046j1525142x200202034x, doi101080106351501753462876, doi101093sysbiosys029, doi101098rsos172206, doi101098rspb20100590, doi101098rstb20140313, doi10118617429994729, doi10166609147r21, doi105860choice416546, openalexw650377807"
}

@article{doi101242dev182899,
    author = "Erwin, Douglas H.",
    title = "The origin of animal body plans: a view from fossil evidence and the regulatory genome",
    year = "2020",
    journal = "Development",
    abstract = "The origins and the early evolution of multicellular animals required the exploitation of holozoan genomic regulatory elements and the acquisition of new regulatory tools. Comparative studies of metazoans and their relatives now allow reconstruction of the evolution of the metazoan regulatory genome, but the deep conservation of many genes has led to varied hypotheses about the morphology of early animals and the extent of developmental co-option. In this Review, I assess the emerging view that the early diversification of animals involved small organisms with diverse cell types, but largely lacking complex developmental patterning, which evolved independently in different bilaterian clades during the Cambrian Explosion.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1242/dev.182899",
    doi = "10.1242/dev.182899",
    openalex = "W3008209667",
    references = "doi10100797894017960023, doi101016jtree201806003, doi101016jydbio201611012, doi101038nrn201515, doi101038s4155901908216, doi101038s4158601912170, doi101073pnas1403669112, doi101093icbicy088, doi101111gbi12165, doi101111j14724669201000246x"
}

@article{doi101002spp21458,
    author = "Harvey, Thomas H. P. and Butterfield, Nicholas J.",
    title = "A new species of early Cambrian arthropod reconstructed from exceptionally preserved mandibles and associated small carbonaceous fossils (SCFs)",
    year = "2022",
    journal = "Papers in Palaeontology",
    abstract = "Abstract Mandibulate arthropods (myriapods, hexapods and crustaceans) account for a major component of extant animal diversity but their origins remain unclear. Here, we re‐examine the record of exceptionally preserved arthropodan microfossils, including mandibles, from the lower Cambrian (Stage 4) Mount Clark Formation, Northwest Territories, Canada. The assemblage comes from a single drillcore horizon and occurs as thousands of small carbonaceous fossils (SCFs) representing disarticulated body parts. The mandibles occur as isolated molar surfaces with an elongate outline, a heavy setal fringe, and a subtle right–left asymmetry. These are sufficiently distinctive to diagnose a new genus and species of arthropod, Masticaris fimbriata. Co‐occurring SCFs include diverse appendage lobes and ventral body fragments, along with spines and setae assignable to 53 morphological categories and occurring either singly or in arrays, including filter plates. Most are plausibly interpreted as belonging to the feeding apparatus of M. fimbriata. The mandibles and filter plates correspond to those in extant pancrustaceans, particularly branchiopods, although the mouthparts of some more basal Cambrian arthropods raise the possibility of convergent feeding adaptations. Overall, anatomical and taphonomic continuity with younger SCFs suggests that M. fimbriata belongs to an early pancrustacean radiation that is still largely cryptic in the fossil record. More generally, the assemblage provides an inventory of fine‐scale cuticular specializations in early Cambrian arthropods that prefigure the trophic versatility and ecological dominance of crustaceans in the modern marine fauna.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1002/spp2.1458",
    doi = "10.1002/spp2.1458",
    openalex = "W4293772105",
    references = "doi101002spp21347, openalexw1557571618"
}

@article{doi101016jpalaeo2022111158,
    author = "Verde, Mariano and Netto, Renata Guimarães and Azurica, Diana and Lavina, Ernesto Luiz Corrêa and Pasquo, Mercedes Di",
    title = "Revisiting the supposed oldest bilaterian trace fossils from Uruguay: Late Paleozoic, not Ediacaran",
    year = "2022",
    journal = "Palaeogeography Palaeoclimatology Palaeoecology",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.palaeo.2022.111158",
    doi = "10.1016/j.palaeo.2022.111158",
    openalex = "W4288060896",
    references = "doi101146annurevecolsys011720124437, openalexw2247901322"
}

@article{doi101111brv12908,
    author = "Nanglu, Karma and Cole, Selina R. and Wright, David F. and Souto, Camilla",
    title = "Worms and gills, plates and spines: the evolutionary origins and incredible disparity of deuterostomes revealed by fossils, genes, and development",
    year = "2022",
    journal = "Biological reviews/Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society",
    abstract = "Deuterostomes are the major division of animal life which includes sea stars, acorn worms, and humans, among a wide variety of ecologically and morphologically disparate taxa. However, their early evolution is poorly understood, due in part to their disparity, which makes identifying commonalities difficult, as well as their relatively poor early fossil record. Here, we review the available morphological, palaeontological, developmental, and molecular data to establish a framework for exploring the origins of this important and enigmatic group. Recent fossil discoveries strongly support a vermiform ancestor to the group Hemichordata, and a fusiform active swimmer as ancestor to Chordata. The diverse and anatomically bewildering variety of forms among the early echinoderms show evidence of both bilateral and radial symmetry. We consider four characteristics most critical for understanding the form and function of the last common ancestor to Deuterostomia: Hox gene expression patterns, larval morphology, the capacity for biomineralization, and the morphology of the pharyngeal region. We posit a deuterostome last common ancestor with a similar antero-posterior gene regulatory system to that found in modern acorn worms and cephalochordates, a simple planktonic larval form, which was later elaborated in the ambulacrarian lineage, the ability to secrete calcium minerals in a limited fashion, and a pharyngeal respiratory region composed of simple pores. This animal was likely to be motile in adult form, as opposed to the sessile origins that have been historically suggested. Recent debates regarding deuterostome monophyly as well as the wide array of deuterostome-affiliated problematica further suggest the possibility that those features were not only present in the last common ancestor of Deuterostomia, but potentially in the ur-bilaterian. The morphology and development of the early deuterostomes, therefore, underpin some of the most significant questions in the study of metazoan evolution.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1111/brv.12908",
    doi = "10.1111/brv.12908",
    openalex = "W4306738504",
    references = "doi101016jcub202002054, doi101017jpa201720, doi101017pab201942, doi101111brv12614, doi101111j1469185x201200220x, doi101111j15023931201200319x, doi101111pala12475, doi101139z04190, doi101144jgs2015017, doi101186s1291501602714, doi101242dev066712, doi101371journalpone0009586, jefferies1973the"
}

@article{doi101016jearscirev2023104537,
    author = "Nanglu, Karma and Cullen, Thomas M.",
    title = "Across space and time: A review of sampling, preservational, analytical, and anthropogenic biases in fossil data across macroecological scales",
    year = "2023",
    journal = "Earth-Science Reviews",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.earscirev.2023.104537",
    doi = "10.1016/j.earscirev.2023.104537",
    openalex = "W4385621646",
    references = "carrano2016vertebrate, connell1961effects, doi101007bf00345739, doi101007s003380000129, doi101016003101829090202i, doi101016jpalaeo201512015, doi101016jtree202009001, doi101017pab201637, doi101017pab201942, doi101017s2475263000001021, doi101038s41467021237540, doi101080027246342012717567, doi101093nsrnwt032, doi101098rsbl20180431, doi1011112041210x12666, doi101111j14610248200400608x, doi101111pala12591, doi101126science1156963, doi101126science1206375, doi101126science13134091292, doi101126science21545391501, doi101126scienceabd9220, doi101130g473991, doi101130g479071, doi101139cjes20120185, doi101144jgs2015017, doi101186s1289801601068, doi1016660094837336180, doi10166612056, doi1018900012965820020831771tuntob20co2, doi102110palo2014084, doi105962bhltitle115853, eberth1990stratigraphy, openalexw2561546966"
}

@article{doi101098rspb20230257,
    author = "Slater, Ben J.",
    title = "Cambrian ‘sap-sucking’ molluscan radulae among small carbonaceous fossils (SCFs)",
    year = "2023",
    journal = "Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences",
    abstract = "Molluscs have produced an extensive fossil record, owing to the prevalence of robust biomineralized shells among this clade. By contrast, most other components of molluscan anatomy are seldom preserved. Importantly, little is known of the evolutionary history of the unique molluscan feeding apparatus-the radula. A scarcity of fossil radulae has hampered our understanding of the ancestral condition, and of the dietary ecology of early molluscs. The handful of known fossil radulae all point to early molluscs as simple deposit feeders that obtained food via rasping or scraping. This study reports microscopic radulae preserved as 'small carbonaceous fossils' (SCFs) from Cambrian (Stage 4-Wuliuan, approximately 514-504.5 Ma) strata of Sweden. These rare fossil radulae offer novel insights into the feeding anatomy and ecology of early molluscs. Each radula comprises a uniseriate arc of (≤10) blade-shaped teeth, fringed by a slicing keel. This distinctive morphology is strikingly convergent with the radulae of extant sacoglossan heterobranch gastropods-such radulae are specially adapted for piercing the cell walls of green algal tissues to enable suctorial feeding on the cytoplasm contents. Discovery of analogous Cambrian radulae demonstrates this specialized form of herbivory had already evolved among molluscs more than half a billion years ago.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2023.0257",
    doi = "10.1098/rspb.2023.0257",
    openalex = "W4361302402",
    references = "doi101002spp21347, doi101016jearscirev2022104107"
}

@article{doi103389feart20231120118,
    author = "Cong, Peiyun",
    title = "The early animal radiation: insights from interpreting the Cambrian problematic fossils",
    year = "2023",
    journal = "Frontiers in Earth Science",
    abstract = "Genic and genomic data have been reshaping our understanding of the earliest radiation event of metazoans, the well-known Cambrian Evolutionary Radiation, not only from the respects of reshuffling the phylogenetic topologies of some animal phyla but by deciphering the deep homologies of many morphological features. These advances, together with the continuing discoveries of the Ediacaran-Cambrian fossils, are unveiling the cladogenetic process of the early metazoans and the patterns of morphologic evolution during this biological radiation event. In this review, I focus on a small but challenging field, the problematic fossils from the early Cambrian fossil Lagerstätten, such as the Chengjiang biota, mainly on the controversies concerning their interpretation and the consequent impacts on understanding the early evolution of animals. The bizarre body plans of the early Cambrian problematica alone do not account for the difficulties in studying their biology and affinity. Instead, it is the combined action of the taphonomic artifacts and the uncertainty in homologizing the preserved characters that impede generating plausible interpretations. Despite all these issues, a testable and repeatable method for interpreting fossils has emerged and is becoming more practicable. The integration of an evolutionary-grade conceptual frame is beneficial to the interpretation of the Cambrian problematic fossils. Together with the focus on taphonomic alternation and homologic assessment, the Cambrian problematic fossils are becoming more informative nodes in the “parsing tree” of early animal evolution.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.3389/feart.2023.1120118",
    doi = "10.3389/feart.2023.1120118",
    openalex = "W4382491598",
    references = "doi101038s4158602103773z, doi101146annurevecolsys011720124437"
}

@article{doi101130g518291,
    author = "Slater, Ben J.",
    title = "Life in the Cambrian shallows: Exceptionally preserved arthropod and mollusk microfossils from the early Cambrian of Sweden",
    year = "2024",
    journal = "Geology",
    abstract = "Abstract Burgess Shale–type (BST) Lagerstätten record an exceptional variety of Cambrian soft-bodied fauna, yet these deposits are typically restricted to outboard depositional settings \&gt;1000 km from the paleocoastline. For shallow, well-oxygenated shelf environments, our knowledge of non-mineralized animals (the majority of diversity) is severely limited, giving rise to substantial bias in our perception of Cambrian biotas. An alternate means of detecting soft-bodied Cambrian fauna, independent of paleobathymetry, is to use acid maceration to extract microscopic organic remains of non-mineralized animals, known as “small carbonaceous fossils” (SCFs). Here, a hitherto unknown diversity of Cambrian arthropod and mollusk remains are reported from shallow-marine sediments (Cambrian Stage 3 Mickwitzia Sandstone, Sweden). These microfossils comprise a variety of arthropod cuticles preserving sub-micron-scale anatomy alongside abundant radular mouthparts from mollusks—among the oldest known arthropod and molluscan SCFs on record. Significantly, at least three distinct types of fossil radula are identifiable (uniseriate, distichous, and polystichous forms), revealing that substantial diversification of the basic molluscan radula had already taken place by the early Cambrian. These cryptic elements of the biota—otherwise undetectable in such deposits—offer novel insights into Cambrian primary consumers as well as aspects of the fauna that are absent from deeper-water BST deposits.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1130/g51829.1",
    doi = "10.1130/g51829.1",
    openalex = "W4391213720",
    references = "doi101002spp21347, doi101016jearscirev2022104107, doi101130g397881"
}

@article{doi101098rsos242122,
    author = "Moysiuk, Joseph and Caron, Jean-Bernard",
    title = "Early evolvability in arthropod tagmosis exemplified by a new radiodont from the Burgess Shale.",
    year = "2025",
    journal = "Royal Society open science",
    abstract = "Much diversity in arthropod form is the result of variation in the number and differentiation of segments (tagmosis). Fossil evidence to date has suggested that the earliest-diverging arthropods, the radiodonts, exhibited comparatively limited variability in tagmosis. We present a new radiodont, Mosura fentoni n. gen. and n. sp., from the Cambrian (Wuliuan) Burgess Shale that departs from this pattern. Mosura exhibits up to 26 trunk segments, the highest number reported for any radiodont, despite being among the smallest known. The head is short, with a small, rounded preocular sclerite, three prominent eyes and appendages with curving endites tipped with paired spines, altogether suggesting a nektonic, macrophagous predatory ecology. The trunk is divided into a neck, mesotrunk with large swimming flaps and multisegmented posterotrunk with tightly spaced bands of gill lamellae and reduced flaps. Detailed preservation of expansive circulatory lacunae, closely associated with the gills, clarifies the nature of similar structures in other Cambrian arthropod fossils, including Opabinia. The morphology of the posterotrunk suggests specialization for respiration, unique among radiodonts, but broadly convergent with the xiphosuran opisthosoma, isopod pleon and hexapod abdomen. This reinforces the hypothesis that multiple arthropod lineages underwent parallel diversification in tagmosis, in tandem with their initial Cambrian radiation.",
    url = "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12076883/",
    doi = "10.1098/rsos.242122",
    pmcid = "PMC12076883",
    pmid = "40370603",
    references = "doi101098rsos220933"
}

@article{doi101098rspb20242948,
    author = "Mussini, Giovanni and Butterfield, Nicholas J",
    title = "A microscopic Burgess Shale: small carbonaceous fossils from a deeper water biota and the distribution of Cambrian non-mineralized faunas.",
    year = "2025",
    journal = "Proceedings. Biological sciences",
    abstract = "(SCFs) have disclosed a record of organically preserved faunas from Cambrian epeiric seas. Their phylogenetically and functionally derived components, including probable crown-group crustaceans and molluscs, are absent from the 'exceptional' palaeoenvironmental settings captured by Burgess Shale-type (BST) macrofossil biotas. This apparent segregation of SCF and BST-macrofossil deposits has led to contrasting hypotheses on whether their faunal differences reflect genuine ecological patterns or overriding taphonomic controls. We report a new, exceptionally diverse SCF biota from the Cambrian Hess River Formation of the Northwest Territories (Canada), which occupied an offshore slope setting. The Hess River biota, hosted by a single shale sample, rivals the Burgess Shale in its disparity of bilaterian body plans, providing a microfossil counterpoint to the regional record of BST-macrofossil faunas from similar deeper-water palaeoenvironments. The Hess River SCFs comprise exceptionally preserved ecdysozoan and spiralian sclerites, arthropod mouthparts, semi-articulated wiwaxiids, problematica and pterobranchs, but no recognizable crown molluscs or crustaceans. The similarities between the Hess River fauna and classic deeper-water BST-macrofossil biotas suggest significant palaeoecological overlap, robust to their distinct taphonomic expressions. This upholds the existence of comparatively modern communities in Cambrian epeiric settings, distinct from the faunas populating both BST-macrofossil biotas and SCF assemblages sampling similar palaeoenvironments.",
    url = "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11836709/",
    doi = "10.1098/rspb.2024.2948",
    openalex = "W4407752821",
    pmcid = "PMC11836709",
    pmid = "39968618",
    references = "doi101016jearscirev2022104107, doi101016jpalaeo200705023, doi101017s0094837300009994, doi101017s1089332600002837, doi101038nature13576, doi101073pnas1115244109, doi101093icbicx072, doi101098rsos220933, doi101098rspb20242806, doi101111brv12864, doi101111j150239311995tb01587x, doi101126science22246281123, doi101130g325801, doi101130g397881, doi101144jgs2015017, mussini2025a, openalexw1557571618"
}

@article{doi101111pala70001,
    author = "Mussini, Giovanni and Veenma, Yorick P. and Butterfield, Nicholas J.",
    title = "A peritidal Burgess‐Shale‐type fauna from the middle Cambrian of western Canada",
    year = "2025",
    journal = "Palaeontology",
    abstract = "Abstract Burgess‐Shale‐type (BST) faunas have proven critical for mapping the Cambrian assembly of animal‐dominated ecosystems, but have so far only been reported from fully subaqueous deposits. Here we integrate evidence from ichnofossils, sedimentary features, and small carbonaceous fossils (SCFs) from the middle Cambrian (Late Guzhangian, Series 3) Pika Formation of western Jasper National Park, Alberta (Canada) to document a unique BST fauna, occupying a peritidal habitat near the outer margin of a large epicratonic sea. Finely laminated shales with mudcracks and dumbbell‐shaped Arthraria ‐type burrows denote a periodically emergent, dysoxic mudflat setting. This same facies yields SCF priapulids, annelids and wiwaxiids typical of deeper‐marine sediments. Recovery of Cirratuliformia‐like annelid chaetae further identifies the likely source of Arthraria burrows and associated faecal pellets. These findings show that Cambrian marine metazoans, including probable members of crown‐group orders, ranged beyond permanently subaqueous deposits. The expanded palaeoenvironmental range of the BST taxa from the Pika biota denotes remarkably broad ecological tolerances, suggesting the existence of a guild of Cambrian metazoan generalists able to colonize at least transiently subaerial settings. Their occupation of offshore peritidal ecologies may have preluded to more extensive metazoan colonization of high‐energy, siliciclastic marginal marine environments.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1111/pala.70001",
    doi = "10.1111/pala.70001",
    openalex = "W4407171168",
    references = "doi101002spp21347, openalexw2595590115"
}

@article{doi101186s12915025023353,
    author = "Losso, Sarah R and Nanglu, Karma and Weyland, Walker C and Ortega-Hernández, Javier",
    title = "Quantification of leg mobility in the Burgess Shale Olenoides serratus indicates functional differences between trilobite and xiphosuran appendages.",
    year = "2025",
    journal = "BMC biology",
    abstract = "BACKGROUND: Euarthropod appendages are specialized for diverse roles including feeding, walking, and mating, which require precise morphologies and ranges of motion. Cambrian fossils preserve exceptional details of extinct euarthropod appendages that can illuminate their anatomy and ecology. However, fossils are typically restricted by small sample sizes or incomplete preservation, and thus functional studies of the appendages usually rely on idealized reconstructions. The Burgess Shale Olenoides serratus is unique among trilobites owing to the availability of numerous specimens with soft tissue preservation that allow us to quantify its appendages' functional morphology. RESULTS: We measured the range of motion of the legs in Olenoides serratus and the extant horseshoe crab Limulus polyphemus. Despite repeated ecological comparisons between trilobites and xiphosurans, we find significant differences in the appendages' mobility between these taxa, with Limulus showing greater flexibility between the podomeres. CONCLUSIONS: O. serratus legs have a more restricted range of motion relative to L. polyphemus, particularly in their distal region. Flexure between the protopodite played a critical role in allowing the endopodite to create known trilobite trace fossils and bring food toward the ventral groove.",
    url = "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12320380/",
    doi = "10.1186/s12915-025-02335-3",
    openalex = "W4412877897",
    pmcid = "PMC12320380",
    pmid = "40754578",
    references = "doi101002gj3350070104, doi101002jemt23628, doi101016jgr201503009, doi101017s1089332600002837, doi101017s1464793103006274, doi101038ncomms4544, doi101038s41559020013490, doi101073pnas1205875109, doi101093biolinneanblab108, doi101098rspb20181935, doi101098rspb20202075, doi101098rspb20230638, doi105962bhltitle542"
}

@incollection{doi10109397801977974640030009,
    author = "Bell, Graham",
    title = "The Early Cambrian Fossils",
    year = "2026",
    abstract = "Abstract The soft parts of animals are fossilized only in exceptional circumstances. The deposits at Chengjiang (about 520 million years ago) have preserved the soft parts of a wide range of different kinds of animal, and show the extent of the early Cambrian radiation. They include not only sponges and polyps but also many kinds of bilaterians, especially arthropods, and illustrate the growing separation of visceral (internal organs) from somatic features such as limbs, fins, brain and eyes. The Chengjiang animals are not unique, but rather represent a Cambrian community that has been found at many sites throughout the world. The earlier deposits at Kuanpuanchu show that this radiation was well under way 15 million years earlier. Even earlier there was a diverse fauna of animals with hard parts, mostly shells, that is especially preserved in Siberia. Some of these fragments can be identified as the armour of animals where intact individuals have been preserved. At the base of the Cambrian, shells and teeth show that the distinction between predators and prey had already evolved.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1093/9780197797464.003.0009",
    doi = "10.1093/9780197797464.003.0009",
    openalex = "W7148234722",
    references = "doi101134s2079086415050084"
}