Fossils of the Burgess Shale
Videos
The fossils of the Burgess Shale, like the Burgess Shale itself, are fossils that formed around 505 million years ago in the mid-Cambrian period. They were discovered in Canada in 1886, and Charles Do
Charles Walcott searches the Burgess Shale for fossils, assisted by his wife and son, c. 1913
The typical wrinkled "elephant skin" texture of microbial mats
A typical flattened Burgess Shale fossil, Opabinia
Artist's impression of Orthrozanclus
Opabinia
Videos
Opabinia regalis is an extinct stem group marine arthropod found in the Lagerstätte of the Burgess Shale of British Columbia. Opabinia was a soft-bodied animal, measuring up to 7 cm in body length, an
Fossils of the Burgess Shale
…the cladistics method of analysing "evolutionary family trees" has persuaded most researchers that many of the Burgess Shale's "weird wonders", such as Opabinia and Hallucigenia, were evolutionary "aunts and cousins" of present-day types of animal rather than a rapid proliferation of separate phyla, some of…
USNM PAL 57683 Opabinia regalis Image 3
Comparison of Opabinia regalis from the Burgess Shale, and Utaurora comosa, from the Wheeler Formation, House Range, Utah, USA
Top left: retouched image of Opabinia (Walcott Cambrian Geology and Paleontology II by Charles Doolittle Walcott)