animal life

"Scientists have hypothesized for decades that this group must be older than the Cambrian, but until now its origins have remained enigmatic. This discovery reconciles a major gap between predictions based on molecular data and the lack of described ecdysozoans prior to the rich Cambrian fossils record and adds to our understanding of the evolution of animal life," said Mary Droser, a distinguished professor of geology at UCR, who led the study.

However, humans also benefit directly from having a wide range of plant and animal life in their surroundings.

It may be the only place on Earth to have a detailed record of how the Earth entered one of the most catastrophic periods in its history – as well as what happened when the first animal life emerged when the snowball thawed hundreds of millions of years ago.

The big freeze, which covered nearly all the globe in two phases for 80 million years, is known as "Snowball Earth", after which the first animal life emerged.

The book reframes how animal life came to be from the perspective of the humble animal egg, one of the most pervasive, endearing, enduring life-supporting structures in the history of our planet.