| Summary: | A Burgess Shale-type biota is, in part, characterized by a wide diversity of taxa and soft-part preservation. Each provides unique historical insights into early metazoan evolution. Among the more than 40 globally distributed biotas, the early Cambrian Chengjiang and Middle Cambrian Burgess-type biotas are the largest. The Kaili Biota, from the earliest Middle Cambrian of Guizhou, China, contains representatives of 110 metazoan genera belonging to 10 phyla. It contains many well-persevered soft-bodied specimens. This Chinese biota has become the third most taxonomically diverse Burgess Shale-type fauna. Because the Kaili Biota formed in an outer-shelf environment, its main faunal character is large numbers of eocrinoids and planktoic trilobites. The Kaili is younger than the Chengjiang Biota but older than the Canadian Burgess Shale Biota; it shares 30 genera with the Chengjiang and 38 genera with the Burgess Biota. The Kaili Biota displays a taphonomic window to the diversification and evolution of marine offshore organisms covering 5.13 million years between the Early and Middle Cambrian.
|
|---|