The Emu Bay Shale
Australian fossils preserve eyes in such detail that the vision of a Cambrian predator can be reconstructed.
- When
- Known to
- ± 2 million years
- Era
- Cambrian, Paleozoic
The Emu Bay Shale on Kangaroo Island, around 514 million years old, is the only early Cambrian soft-bodied deposit in the southern hemisphere. Its isolated compound eyes carry over 3,000 lenses each, with a bright zone indicating acute forward vision — direct evidence that Cambrian predators hunted visually in clear, well-lit water.