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⭐ In the context of the Avalon explosion, the appearance of early animal groups like cnidarians and bilaterians signifies…

The Avalon explosion is characterized by a notable diversification of metazoans, representing a significant increase in the variety of animal life during the Ediacaran period.

⭐ Core Definition: Cloudina

The cloudinids, an early metazoan family containing the genera Acuticocloudina, Cloudina and Conotubus, lived in the late Ediacaran period about 550 million years ago and became extinct at the base of the Cambrian. They formed millimetre-scale conical fossils consisting of calcareous cones nested within one another; the appearance of the organism itself remains unknown. The name Cloudina honors the 20th-century geologist and paleontologist Preston Cloud.

Cloudinids comprise two genera: Cloudina itself is mineralized, whereas Conotubus is at best weakly mineralized, whilst sharing the same "funnel-in-funnel" construction.

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👉 Cloudina in the context of Avalon Explosion

The Avalon explosion, named from the Precambrian faunal trace fossils discovered on the Avalon Peninsula in Newfoundland, eastern Canada, is a proposed evolutionary radiation of prehistoric animals about 575 million years ago in the Ediacaran period, with the Avalon explosion being one of three eras grouped in this time period. This evolutionary event is believed to have occurred some 33 million years earlier than the Cambrian explosion, which had been long thought to be when complex life started on Earth.

Scientists are still unsure of the full extent behind the development of the Avalon explosion, which resulted in a rapid increase in metazoan biodiversity, including the first appearance of some extant infrakingdoms/superphyla such as cnidarians and bilaterians. Many of the Avalon explosion animals are sessile soft-bodied organisms living in deep marine environments, and the first stages of the Avalon explosion were observed through comparatively minimal species.

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