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Category

Tonian life

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Aspidella
Aspidella is also a homonym for the mushroom genus Saproamanita.
Cyclomedusa
Cyclomedusa is a circular fossil of the Ediacaran biota; it has a circular bump in the middle and as many as five circular growth ridges around it. Many specimens are small, but specimens in excess of 20 cm are known. The concentric disks are not necessarily circular, especially when adjacent individuals interfere with each other's growth. Many radial segment lines — somewhat pineapple-like — extend across the outer disks. A few specimens show what might be a stem extending from the center in some direction or other.
Horodyskia
Horodyskia is a fossilised organism found in rocks dated from to . Its shape has been described as a "string of beads" connected by a very fine thread. It is considered one of the oldest known eukaryotes.
Otavia
Otavia antiqua is an ancient sponge-like multicellular organism found in the Otavi Group (the generic name being the namesake) in the Etosha National Park, Namibia. It is claimed to be the oldest animal fossil, being found in rock aged between 760 and 550 million years ago. The oldest Otavia fossils are from the Tonian period, before the Cryogenian glaciations, but the latest found were from the Nama Group rocks of the Ediacaran period.
Ediacaria
Ediacaria is a nomen dubium fossil genus dating to the Ediacaran Period of the Neoproterozoic Era. Unlike most Ediacaran biota, which disappeared almost entirely from the fossil record at the end of the Period, Ediacaria fossils have been found dating from the Baikalian age (850–650 Ma) of the Upper Riphean to 501 million years ago, well into the Cambrian Period. Ediacaria consists of concentric rough circles, radial lines between the circles and a central dome, with a diameter from 1 to 70 cm.