The Cambrian Fossils of Chengjiang, China. The Flowering of Early Animal Life
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Author(s): Hou Xian-Guang et al.
Publisher: Blackwell Publishing
ISBN: 1405106735
Format: hardback
233pp
Price: £60.00
Review Date: 11 February 2004
Review: The start of the Cambrian Period marked the appearance of mineralized shells, which apparently originated independently in several animal groups just after the beginning of this period. In 1984, the Chengjiang Biota was discovered in Yunnan Province, China. It was older and more preserved than previous discoveries, with a greater variety of organisms preserved, enabling one to visualize a seafloor thronging with life only a short time after the earliest shelly fossils appeared in the underlying strata. The fauna include what are claimed to be the earliest vertebrates as well as arthropods, ‘worms’ of several phyla, large predators, and lumbering lobopods as well as trilobites, the archetypal Cambrian organisms. This book shows that picture of Cambrian life, illustrated throughout by photographs.