The Fezouata biota
Moroccan shale preserves soft bodies twenty million years after the Burgess Shale, closing a gap in the record.
- When
- Known to
- ± 3 million years
- Era
- Ordovician, Paleozoic
The Fezouata formations, roughly 480 to 472 million years old, contain a Burgess Shale-type fauna in Early Ordovician rocks — soft-bodied arthropods, sponges and worms alongside the shelled animals typical of the period. It shows that Cambrian-style creatures did not simply vanish, and provides the direct link between Burgess communities and the opening stages of the Ordovician radiation.