The Burgess Shale fossils at the Natural History Museum, London

Abstract

The fossils from Burgess Shale (British Columbia) and other exceptionally preserved Cambrian faunas have been the focus of intensive research in the last couple of decades. They reveal insights into a time and into a world where animals began to thrive more than 500 million years ago. They give palaeontologists a more complete picture of the diversity of the Middle Cambrian biota, where soft-bodied animals were surprisingly more numerous than shelly organisms. The Natural History Museum, London contains important palaeontological reference collections of worldwide significance. Among these were found and studied sixty-four specimens that came from the Burgess Shale site.