Dr. Steven Novella

So yeah, so this is an incredible fossil find.

The Ediacaran fossils are rare because, why do you think they're rare?

They were all soft body.

They hadn't evolved hard parts yet.

So that's why in 2026, we're still making amazing discoveries about Ediacaran fossils.

But this is just a fantastic fossil.

So what was actually fossilized?

So it has to be just the right conditions to preserve the impressions of the soft body parts.

Impressions, yeah.

And actually, so the Ediacaran period gets broken up into three assemblages, meaning three periods of time.

No, they're called assemblages.

No one's going to know.

I just learned this by reading about it.

I've never heard this before.

So an assemblage means it's a group of animals living in the same place at the same time, right?

Yeah, so there are the Avalon, the White Sea, and the Nama, right?

Those are the three Ediacaran assemblages.

And they go in that order, first Avalon, then White Sea, then Nama.

What they discovered in Canada was a White Sea assemblage, but dating to the Avalon period of time.

So pushing that assemblage back in time 5 to 10 million years.