A typically problematic aspect to the Ediacaran–Cambrian transition is provided by the origin of burrowing, one of the distinguishing features of the bilaterian clade. Although some cnidarians can burrow [such as the ceriantharians (Jensen, 1992 ), actiniarians (Durden, Bett & Ruhl, 2015 ), and sea pens], these are generally simple vertical structures [claims by Bradley ( 1980 , 1981 ) of complex cnidarian burrows are problematic – see Lewy ( 2008 ) for a refutation of some of Bradley's work], and complex and large burrows are almost certain indicators of the presence of complex anatomy including a coelom or other hydrostatic body cavity and a concentration of sensory organs (e.g. Budd & Jensen, 2000 ). The appearance of such burrows, probably around 545 to 543 Ma (Jensen, 2003 ; Mángano & Buatois, 2014 ) is thus the latest time that at least stem‐group bilaterians could have emerged, and it is reasonable to think that the trace record before this to about 560 to 555 Ma is phylogenetically related. Even earlier traces, from the c . 565 Ma Mistaken Point biota, on the other hand, may have been produced by non‐bilaterians (Liu, McIlroy & Brasier, 2010 ; Liu et al. , 2014 b ). Why, however, would such behaviour have emerged? Burrowing is after all, very expensive energetically, even if it seems that the slow rates at which organisms burrow mitigate the cost per unit time (Dorgan et al. , 2011 ). The suggestion that organisms were driven to burrow by predation pressure (e.g. Dzik, 2007 ) implies the presence of mobile predators – themselves likely to be the product of the bilaterian radiation, unless the predatorial pressure came from cnidarians, adding yet another level of speculation as this would require inferences about early cnidarian feeding modes. Thus it seems necessary to take a broader phylogenetic and ecological view of the background to the bilaterian radiation, including the origin of the animals themselves.

Unfortunately, many or even all key data that might be required for an understanding of the early stages in animal evolution remain highly unclear. We have as yet a relatively poor understanding of the continental configuration at the relevant time, the composition of sea water, the carbon budget and nature and rate of carbon export from planktonic primary productivity, the phylogeny of basal animals, the affinities of many of the early fossils such as those characterising the Ediacaran Period, and indeed when the early stages of animal evolution actually took place, to name just a few. Thus, although several theories have been proposed to account for this remarkable evolutionary interval, a cautious probing of the literature reveals that the empirical basis for many of them is fragile.

The transition from a Proterozoic world with benthic communities consisting of microbial mats and algae, and phytoplanktonic communities with no zooplankton into a Cambrian world with thriving benthic and planktonic animal communities raises puzzling questions about cause and effect. Several ecological mechanisms that have been suggested to be implicated – the evolution of grazing (Stanley, 1973 ), predation (e.g. Evans, 1912 ), vision (Parker, 2003 ) or of the mesoplankton (Butterfield, 1997 ) – all seem to presuppose at least some of the evolutionary events that they purport to explain: if one invokes animal innovations to explain the Cambrian explosion, one is left wondering what in turn was the ‘cause’ of the favoured innovation. For example, if one believes that the evolution of the planktonic arthropod mesoplankton had an important role in driving the Cambrian explosion, one has to account for all the evolution that needs to take place before the arthropod mesoplankton evolved, especially given that they emerged from the arthropod crustacean benthos (Rigby & Milsom, 1996 ). By the time of the appearance of highly derived crustaceans, one may reasonably wonder what proportion of basal animal radiation is left to be explained by their activities. These sorts of explanations also fall into the same problematic category as other ‘key innovation’ explanations (Budd, 1998 ) in pushing back, rather than solving the problem at hand. Rather, hypotheses are required that rely only on events that have already occurred and that do not rely on implied prescience of future conditions. That is not to deny, of course, that the innovations mentioned above were without ecological significance – rather, that their overall explanatory significance must be considered to be limited by their necessarily circumscribed nature. A further aspect to the origin of the animals, and one that has recently been under considerable scrutiny, is the role of ‘internal’ factors such as the evolution of key developmental genes (e.g. Holland, 1998 , 2015 ) which undoubtedly played a permissive or even causal role in the evolution of key bilaterian structures and tissues such as muscle, the gut, etc. However, if these important genetic innovations are to be seen in their proper light, they must be set within an appropriate ecological framework (see e.g. Budd, 1998 , 2001 , for examples).

II. ANIMAL ORIGINS – THE EARLY EVOLUTION OF THE ‘APOIKOZOANS’

Animals are in the opisthokont clade of eukaryotes, i.e. a group characterised by cells bearing a single posterior flagellum (Cavalier‐Smith, 1987). Other important members of this clade are the Fungi, the slime moulds, the choanoflagellates, and some other minor groups. The immediate sister group to the animals appears to be the Choanoflagellata (Carr et al., 2008), followed by the Filasterea, consisting of a group of relatively little‐known parasites (Cavalier‐Smith, 2009). Although some information about the filastereans is available, including the presence of signalling pathways (Shalchian‐Tabrizi et al., 2008), most insights about the origins of the animals come from the choanoflagellates and their genome (King et al., 2008) although many aspects of their ecology and genetics remain unknown. Most of the discussion below is centred on choanoflagellates and animals. Rather surprisingly, this clade does not have a commonly used name [Fairclough et al. (2013) use the informal name ‘Choanimal’], so we propose here Apoikozoa, meaning ‘colony‐animals’ (Fig. 1), reflecting the widespread, and possibly basal, ability of organisms within this clade to form colonies.

Figure 1 Open in figure viewer PowerPoint et al. ( 2008 et al. ( 2010 One possible phylogeny of the Apoikozoa, based on Carr) and Pick). Significant early developmental and morphological features are mapped based on character optimisation between Metazoa and Choanoflagellata. Hippo, RTK/CTK (receptor tyrosine kinases/cytoplasmic tyrosine kinases), Notch and Hedgehog refer to metazoan signalling pathways. For details and data sources, see text. Placozoans omitted.

Reconstruction of the last common ancestor of the apoikozoans is problematic, partly because of the continued difficulties in reliably recovering basal animal relationships. For example, are the ctenophores basal, a sister group to the poriferans, or a sister group to the cnidarians or the eumetazoans (Wallberg et al., 2004; Philippe & Roure, 2011; Philippe et al., 2011)? Are poriferans mono‐ or paraphyletic? Are poriferans secondarily reduced or primitively simple? Where do placozoans fit in? Is bilaterality an autapomorphy of the bilaterians, or a synapomorphy of the eumetazoans? Difficult though these questions are, at least some insights can be gained by comparison with the choanoflagellates. Choanoflagellates have long excited interest because of their resemblance to the choanocytes of sponges, and many authors continue consider the two to be in some sense homologous (see e.g. Maldonado, 2004; but see also Mah, Christensen‐Dalsgaard & Leys, 2014, and Section II.2). The choanoflagellates are traditionally divided into three families, although a recent phylogeny only supports one of them, the Acanthoecidae (Carr et al., 2008); the other two families, the Codonosigidae and Salpingoecidae together forming a second clade. The acanthoecidans, or loricate choanoflagellates, are notable for the presence of a siliceous basket or lorica that is assembled from small costal strips, themselves assembled into costae that are arranged in a complex structure around the choanoflagellate. The function of the lorica seems to be to add stability to the choanoflagellate whilst feeding, as the movements of the flagellum would otherwise tend to move the cell and thus reduce feeding efficiency.

The choanoflagellate costal strip is built around an inner glycoprotein core (Gong et al., 2010), and in this it somewhat resembles the manufacture of the spicules of siliceous sponges. Naturally, this raises the question of whether or not the two types of structure are homologous – an obvious possibility, given their close phylogenetic proximity and shared, apparently unique bio‐silica composition. However, recent discovery of a diatom‐like silicic acid transport system in loricate choanoflagellates (Marron et al., 2013) questions this view: these authors suggest that the ability to synthesise siliceous structures was acquired either by the loricate choanoflagellates by lateral gene transfer from diatoms, or vice versa. Nevertheless, the ability to transport silicic acid into the cell is not the same as the ability to utilise it, and it seems that the rest of the mechanism for producing silica in choanoflagellates differs from that of diatoms. Furthermore, although a different silicic acid transport system has been reported from a demosponge (Schröder et al., 2004), none of the relevant mechanisms are particularly well known. As a result, it remains unclear whether silica production is homologous or not in choanoflagellates and metazoans (sponges), although present evidence does seem to suggest not. One further point is that members of the Ediacaran biota do not seem to preserve evidence for silica spicules or laths, and if some of these are stem‐group metazoans (Section II.6), then one would expect these structures to have persisted in the stem group. Although some Ediacaran organisms, such as Fedomia (Serezhnikova & Ivantsov, 2007), Coronacollina (Clites, Droser & Gehling, 2012) and Palaeophragmodictya (Gehling & Rigby, 1996; Serezhnikova, 2009) have been interpreted as being spiculate, this is yet to be documented convincingly (see also Antcliffe, Callow & Brasier, 2014 for a general review of supposed Precambrian sponges including their spicules; for recent documentation of crown‐group demosponges in the Cambrian, see, Botting, Cárdenas & Peel, 2015).

(1) The earliest metazoans: the placula revisited As is well known, some of the choanoflagellates have the ability to form facultative colonies (Fairclough, Dayel & King, 2010), although these all seem to be in the planktonic rather than solitary benthic life stages. These colonies produce a jelly‐like extracellular matrix that the colony is embedded in, although reports of amoebocyte‐like cells in the earlier literature do not seem to have been verified. Cells in colonies of Salpingoeca rosetta (and other choanoflagellates) can remain connected in various ways including via the extracellular matrix, filopodia, and intercellular bridges (Dayel et al., 2011). The intercellular bridges are reported to resemble the products of incomplete cytokinesis seen in metazoans (e.g. in germ cysts; Ong & Tan, 2010) and perhaps also the plugged cytoplasmic bridges seen in hexactinellids (Leys, 2003). It is therefore possible that the last common ancestor of animals and choanoflagellates was able to form colonies (see Carr et al., 2008, who argue that coloniality must have appeared early in choanoflagellate evolution, and cannot be ruled out as a possible synapomorphy of choanoflagellates and metazoans), complete with extracellular matrix (ECM) (for reviews of the evolution of the ECM, see Hynes, 2012; Adams, 2013). We would nevertheless caution that although this is one possible reconstruction given the available evidence, it does require loss of this ability in one of the extant clades of choanoflagellates, the Acanthoecidae (Fig. 1). While traditionally the earliest animals are regarded as being planktonic, the phylogenetic evidence is not decisive (existing choanoflagellate colonies are planktonic; those of animals are benthic). This is a timely reminder that the living choanoflagellates are themselves derived relative to their last common ancestor with living animals, a point that Brasier (2009) emphasised with regard to cnidarians. However one good reason for concluding that stem‐group animals were benthic is their large size: such benthic colonies – probably also with the ability to (at least facultatively) produce differentiated cells (as do choanoflagellates, albeit not in colonies; Dayel et al., 2011) – might best be considered as competitors within the general ‘mat‐world’ setting of the later Proterozoic. They would have thus grown larger colonies in order to avoid being overgrown by their microbial competitors (see comments in Reitner & Wörheide, 2002). This view is decidedly in contrast to the Haeckelian heritage of undifferentiated planktonic balls of cells giving rise to the earliest metazoans (e.g. Nielsen, 2008). It places stem‐group metazoans in a competitive microbially dominated benthos and not the plankton, and includes the early appearance of cellular differentiation before colony formation (Mikhailov et al., 2009). It partly parallels the early stages of the ‘placula’ theory of Bütschli (1884) [see also a general review of theories of animal evolution by Mikhailov et al. (2009)], and also in important aspects the ‘synzoospore’ theory of Zakhvatkin (1949). Of particular interest here is the intimate association of sponges with various prokaryotes, which may be important in their feeding modes (Yahel et al., 2003; Maldonado, 2007), including demosponges with eubacteria (Schumann‐Kindel et al., 1997) and hexactinellids with archaeans (Thiel et al., 2002). These can be transferred during reproduction (Kaye, 1991), giving the impression of sponges being in some regards differentiated parts of microbial mats. Indeed, the role of bacteria in facilitating early animal evolution may be significant (Alegado et al., 2012; for a useful review, see Alegado & King, 2014). The early animals may have increased their genetic armoury directly via lateral gene transfer from their prey, and by co‐option of adherence proteins involved in prey capture into the mechanism for multicellularity. Furthermore, specific chemical cues from bacteria can trigger the formation of multicellular colonies in choanoflagellates (Alegado et al., 2012). Such subtle reciprocal interactions with their prey may explain how the animals rose to be so complex, and why it took them so long to do so. If this general view of sponges (and other animals) evolving via biofilms from a colonial opishthokont is correct, then it seems likely that these animals were capable of feeding on bacteria and/or dissolved organic carbon (DOC), as do choanoflagellates (Gold, Pfister & Liguori, 1970) and sponges (Alegado & King, 2014). Given the general presence of sexual reproduction in eukaryotes and in particular in animals, and the likelihood of sexual reproduction in choanoflagellates based on the presence of meiosis genes (Carr, Leadbeater & Baldauf, 2010 – even if sexual reproduction has never been observed directly), these stem animals and eumetazoans were also likely to reproduce sexually, and thus to have at least a mobile sperm stage. In some sponges, this is the only motile life stage, but others also have motile larval and juvenile stages (Maldonado, 2004, 2006) and adult sponges are known to be capable of slow movement (Bond & Harris, 1988). The peculiar mode of fertilization in some sponges, whereby the sperm is captured by a choanocyte, which in turn ferries it to the oocyte (Simpson, 1984; Maldonado & Riesgo, 2008), may reflect reproductive strategies in now‐extinct more‐basal taxa. Thus, mobility at some level was present as a plesiomorphy for Metazoa, and indeed Apoikozoa. Given the relatively complex lifestyles of even unicellular opisthokonts, it is perhaps not surprising that they have a set of signalling pathways that in at least some aspects shadow the canonical eight developed more fully in metazoans and especially bilaterians (Pires da Silva & Sommer, 2003; King et al., 2008; Shalchian‐Tabrizi et al., 2008; Sebé‐Pedrós et al., 2012; Fairclough et al., 2013), although it is also clear that considerable evolution of signalling pathways has taken place independently in choanoflagellates and metazoans (e.g. Suga et al., 2008), and the suggestion that choanoflagellates essentially possess animal‐like pathways would be misleading. Finally, it is likely that these early metazoans were characterised by a substantial collagenous ECM that would have provided support for large colonies (Adams, 2013).

(2) Basal animal relationships Although several analyses (e.g. Sperling, Pisani & Peterson, 2007) have suggested that the sponges are paraphyletic, some recent phylogenies have recovered more traditional groupings, with a monophyletic Porifera and ctenophores either as sister group to the cnidarians (thus reviving the traditional Coelenterata) or in an unresolved trichotomy at the base of the Eumetazoa (Philippe et al., 2009, 2011; Budd, 2013; Nosenko et al., 2013). Thus, at present, the conclusion must be that we have not yet fully resolved basal animal relationships. In reconstructions where sponges are monophyletic, the eumetazoans need not be derived directly from a sponge, complete with supposedly sponge‐specific apomorphies such as the water canal system; but the presence of choanocytes as cell types in sponges rather strongly suggests that both stem‐animals and eumetazoans were at least somewhat sponge‐like in organisation, assuming their homology with choanoflagellates (for skeptical voices concerning the homology of choanocytes and choanoflagellates, see Mah et al., 2014). Note also that choanocyte‐like cells are phylogenetically widely scattered, including in deuterostomes and other protists (e.g. Maldonado, 2004; Mah et al., 2014, and references therein), although these are not generally considered to be homologous). The possibility of the ctenophores being the sister group to the rest of the animals (Dunn et al., 2008, 2014; Ryan et al., 2013; Moroz et al., 2014; but see also Philippe et al., 2009; Pick et al., 2010; Nosenko et al., 2013) remains surprising. For example, genomic analysis (fig. 3 in Moroz et al., 2014) suggested that ctenophores have a highly reduced complement of metazoan genes. However, these may not be primary, but secondary absences (see also Copley et al., 2004), a possibility that could be investigated by comparing the gene complement of, for example, bilaterians and choanoflagellates. Various lines of evidence, especially the genome analysis of Ryan et al. (2013), suggest that not only are ctenophores basal, but their nervous system and/or mesoderm may be convergently derived relative to that of bilaterians (Dayraud et al., 2012; Moroz et al., 2014; Ryan, 2014; see Steinmetz et al., 2012 for similar arguments about the convergence of striated muscle in cnidarians and bilaterians). There is also the suggestion that the presence of nerve tissue‐specific genes shared by ctenophores and sponges might conversely suggest the loss of a nervous system in sponges (for a review of whether sponges can be considered to have a nervous system, see Nickel, 2010). The principal difficulty with using molecules as markers for homology, as has been argued for both muscles and nerves, is that a morphological structure may be homologous between two taxa and yet have diverged at the molecular level (see e.g. Budd, 2013, for the case of segmentation patterning in insects). Given the morphological similarities between the muscles of cnidarians and bilaterians, for example, and their sister‐group relationship, we can still consider the two as being homologous, despite their molecular divergence. Similarly, the synaptic nerves of ctenophores, which also share a number of molecular markers with eumetazoans (Ryan, 2014) do not need to be seen to be convergent, despite also possessing marked differences at the molecular level: homology is not the same thing as similarity [see Marlow & Arendt (2014) for a defence of nervous system homology in ctenophores and other animals, and Monk & Paulin (2014) for a general review of the early evolution of neurons]. No matter what phylogenetic reconstruction is eventually adopted, the conventional view of early animal evolution marching confidently through cell grade (sponges) to tissue grade (cnidarians, ctenophores) to organ grade (bilaterians) seems to be shaken by hints of a more complex pattern of gain, loss and convergence (Ryan et al., 2013). If ctenophore systems are homologous to those of eumetazoans, and they are basal, conversely, then a monophyletic Porifera may be secondarily (and rather profoundly) reduced. Nevertheless, sponges, far from being the more or less featureless blobs of conventional wisdom, are emerging to be more eumetazoan‐like than previously supposed. For example, some appear to form closed epithelia with a basement membrane (Boute et al., 1996; Adams, Goss & Leys, 2010; Ereskovsky, Renard & Borchiellini, 2013) and can propagate contractile waves through their tissues (Leys, 2003). The phylogenetic distribution of such features throughout sponges remains somewhat unclear partly because they remain poorly studied. Recent studies (e.g. Maldonado, 2004) have shown that the newly recognised class Homoscleromorpha possesses polarised pinacoderm cells with eumetazoan‐like basement membranes in both adults and larvae, essentially meaning they have true epithelia. By contrast, adult sponges of other clades possess poorly polarised cells in their pinacoderm or outer covering, and lack a collagenous basement membrane, so that the cells are free to migrate in and out of the underlying mesohyl (Maldonado, 2004). There are at least hints that other sponge larvae may also harbour something approximating basement membranes (Vacelet, 1999; Maldonado, 2004). The significance of such observations depends very much on the phylogenetic arrangement of sponges, and whether this is simply a convergence or not. If they are monophyletic with homoscleromorphs plus calcareans as the sister group to all other sponges (Philippe et al., 2009), then one suggestion would be (by comparison to a eumetazoan outgroup) that all sponges originally possessed true epithelia, which have been lost in most clades. If so, then crown‐group sponges may differ significantly from stem‐group forms, which may be expected to be much more constrained by the presence of epithelia. Conversely, this reconstruction makes the idea of sponges simply being large choanoflagellate colonies untenable, for it is based on crown‐group sponges that may be more colony‐like than their direct ancestors. Nevertheless, the significance of these speculations should not be over‐rated: homoscleromorph sponges are still extremely sponge‐like, despite their epithelia. The potential problems of saturation, inadequate models, long‐branch attraction and taxon undersampling combine to make the position of the ctenophores very uncertain (Nosenko et al., 2013). In the face of this molecular uncertainty, we do not consider the traditional view of ctenophores as forming part of a clade consisting of cnidarians, ctenophores and bilaterians (with or without placozoans) to have been falsified (see e.g. comments in Simion et al., 2015). Our inability to resolve basal animal relationships exerts a strong and confounding effect on our understanding of the early fossil record. For example, if ‘sponges’ are really paraphyletic, then in order to reach the last common ancestor of cnidarians or bilaterians, one would necessarily have to pass through a crown‐group ‘sponge’ ancestor. This would in turn imply that before the first bilaterian animals and their fossils evolved, sponges must have diversified greatly: the stem groups at least of all their major lineages must have been established by then. The remarkable silence of the Precambrian fossil record on the topic of sponges, and their proliferation, both as body fossils and isolated spicules, in the Cambrian, may be telling. It is possible, as discussed by Sperling et al. (2010) and Sperling, Peterson & Laflamme (2011), that Precambrian sponges were simply ‘different’ from Phanerozoic ones, but this suggestion – which requires that that modern sponges have independently acquired their distinctive morphology from a very different ancestor – seems to be somewhat unlikely. If ctenophores are the sister group to cnidarians plus bilaterians, then the old characters that used to unite the ‘Coelenterata’ would become plesiomorphies that would characterise the lineages that gave rise to both cnidarians and indeed bilaterians. This would, like the ‘sponges first’ scenario above, provide a useful indicator for what these animals might look like. In reconstructions where ctenophores and cnidarians form successive offshoots to the bilaterians (e.g. Pick et al., 2010), potential plesiomorphies of ctenophores and cnidarians such as the presence of the mesoglea, muscles and nerves, thus become important in assessing the potential morphology of stem‐group animals. Conversely, if ctenophores are an independently derived clade at the base of the tree, then we have few indications about the transition from the metazoan last common ancestor to ctenophores, and from the last common ancestor of sponges with the eumetazoans to the eumetazoans themselves. This basic uncertainty must undermine our confidence in understanding the early fossil record of the period in question, to which we now turn. We wish to stress, in line with our previous work (Budd & Jensen, 2000; Budd, 2013), that there is no reason to prioritise crown‐ over stem‐group animals. Just like crown‐group animals, members of the deep stem groups in question had definite features, some of which were undoubtedly retained by extant crown groups. For example, even if ctenophores had a long stem group with the crown group evolving relatively recently (Podar et al., 2001), their ancestors were not featureless. A consequence of this is that characters associated uniquely with modern monophyletic clades almost inevitably had a broader distribution in the past than they do now. Conversely, it is worth stressing that the absence of particular features of modern clades does not exclude an organism from the relevant total group. These points will become relevant when we begin to consider the problematic early putative animal fossil record. In order to make sense of the fossil record, it is necessary to have a working model of animal phylogeny (albeit one incorporating potential flexibility), so we have chosen to use the tree of Pick et al. (2010) as our framework (Fig. 1), i.e. with a monophyletic basal Porifera, and Ctenophora as sister group to Cnidaria + Bilateria, which we believe is the best‐supported current topology (see Ryan et al., 2010). The position of the Placozoa is not relevant to our argument. This tree is consonant with sponges and choanoflagellates having arisen from an at least facultatively colonial ancestor, and highlights the importance of the ECM persisting up the stem groups to Eumetazoa and Bilateria [homology between Cnidaria and Ctenophora remains uncertain, however, largely because of the poorly studied nature of the ctenophore ECM (Adams, 2013)]. In addition to a well‐developed ECM, other potential features present in these stem groups would include an oral–aboral axis and some early developmental similarities identified by Scholtz (2004). The recent description of the problematic Dendrogramma (Just, Kristensen & Olesen, 2014) may provide some indications of the sorts of organisms this set of characters might correspond to. Finally, this phylogeny would suggest that the classical Epithelioza (that is, Cnidaria + Placozoa + Ctenophora + Eumetazoa) primitively were predators.

(3) The earliest fossil record of the apoikozoans The fossil record of the earliest stages in apoikozoan evolution remains lamentably poor. The oldest fossils that might be relevant to the basal apoikozoans are probably the oldest ‘Ediacara’‐aspect taxa at around 579 Ma from the Avalonian assemblage (Narbonne & Gehling, 2003; Narbonne, 2005; Liu et al., 2012) and thus post‐dating the Gaskiers glaciation at around 583 Ma. The so‐called ‘Twitya disks’ from the Canadian Cordillera are even older as they date from before the Marinoan glaciation, but their simplicity makes further comparison with extant taxa difficult (Narbonne, 2007). Apparently similar forms have been reported from the >750 Ma Kurgan Formation of Kazakhstan (Meert et al., 2011) and the Mesoproterozoic Sukhoy Pit Group of East Siberia (Liu et al., 2013); again, their relevance to metazoan evolution remains unclear. The Lantian biota (Yuan et al., 2011, 2013) seems to consist largely of algae, but the description of one of the more complex taxa as a possible conulariid‐like organism (probable cnidarians known otherwise from the Palaeozoic) is not without interest (Van Iten et al., 2013). The dating of the Lantian however, remains somewhat uncertain and it may in fact post‐date the Gaskiers glaciation at c. 580 Ma, although it has been claimed to be immediately post‐Marinoan at c. 630 Ma (Yuan et al., 2011). As is common with singular identifications (Budd, 2013), if one cnidarian is found in such early deposits, it implies that a considerable amount of early animal evolution had taken place by then. Nevertheless, the case for late‐Precambrian total‐group cnidarians is beginning to build, for example with the recent description of a potentially cnidarian‐like form, Haootia quadriformis from Newfoundland at c. 560 Ma, complete with putative muscle (Liu et al., 2014a; Liu, Kenchington & Mitchell, 2015), although this specimen is perhaps too poorly preserved for a definitive judgement.

(4) Late Ediacaran macroscopic fossils: systematics and taxonomy Probably no other fossils have generated such a range of diverse interpretations as the enigmatic ‘Ediacaran’ macrofossils from the late Ediacaran Period, with possibly the only broad agreement being the absence of biomineralized hard parts. For example, views on the affinities of archetypical late Ediacaran fossils such as Dickinsonia have varied between considering them more or less conventional members of known phyla (e.g. Glaessner, 1984; Gehling, 1991; Sperling & Vinther, 2010; Gold et al., 2015), and regarding them as fungi, algae, xenophyophores, lichens, etc. (e.g. Seilacher, 1984, 1999; Retallack, 1994; Peterson, Waggoner & Hagadorn, 2003). Of these, the most influential and provocative has been the ‘Vendobionta’ theory of Seilacher (e.g. Seilacher, 1984; Seilacher & Gishlick, 2015), which at least as originally conceived saw the Ediacarans as flattened organisms constructed from a characteristic ‘pneu’ (i.e. airbed) structure, with no phylogenetic relationships to metazoans but rather being protists. Conversely, an intermediate view that we continue to support here sees them as animals, but not as members of crown groups of living phyla (e.g. Budd & Jensen, 2000; Dewel, 2000; Dewel, Dewel & McKinney, 2001; Zhu et al., 2008; Section II.6). Genus‐level classification appears to be the most used, and perhaps most useful, level of communication with regards to these fossils. Here we briefly examine problems in higher‐level classification of these fossils and consider some recent systematic studies in which a substantial body of Ediacara‐type fossils have been considered to be animals. The search for affinities with Phanerozoic animals is complicated by the absence of readily identifiable anatomical features, and in cases where these have been reported, such as the purported intestine in Dickinsonia, they are subtle features for which alternative interpretations are invariably offered. It would also be desirable to know if the absence of readily identifiable anatomical detail is a taphonomical artefact. This question remains largely open. Information on the extent to which anatomical detail of modern soft‐bodied animals would be preserved during fossilisation would also be of interest, but such information is limited. Finds of Ediacara‐type fossils preserved both as carbonaceous films and the more typical mouldic preservation in sandstone (Xiao et al., 2013) may eventually provide insights but the number of taxa remains low. There is also uncertainty in whether the available fossils represent the whole organism or only a part. Many discoidal fossils are known to have formed the base for frond‐like erect structures, but this may not apply in all cases. Some fractal genera may represent ontogenetic (or ecological?) series (Brasier & Antcliffe, 2004) and this may also apply to other specimens – Grazhdankin (2014) noted that Parvancorina and Temnoxa show similarities to parts of Kimberella. The degree of preserved information, although often hard to evaluate, differs across the range of Ediacara‐type fossils. Some forms show a more complex morphology. Spriggina has been considered by many authors (e.g. Gehling, 1991) as a promising candidate with affinities to either arthropods or annelids but definite proof has not yet been obtained. Presently, Kimberella arguably provides the most diverse range of morphological detail, but even so its placement remains in doubt (Section II.5). Speculation on the phylogenetic relationships of, and among, Ediacara‐type fossils is largely based on general features such as symmetry and polarity. Radially symmetrical forms, when interpreted as animals, have generally been considered cnidarians (or coelenterates), although attempts to place them into modern classes have not been successful. As emphasised by Brasier (2009), attempts at direct comparisons between what were likely stem‐group cnidarians and Phanerozoic cnidarians may in any case be futile as they evolved under very different ecological conditions. Recent attempts at supra‐generic classifications have been made by Erwin et al. (2011) and Grazhdankin (2014). Before considering these schemes it is relevant to mention an earlier and relatively comprehensive supra‐generic classification by Fedonkin (e.g. 1985, 1987), who interpreted Ediacara‐type fossils as animals but with the majority placed in classes that left no descendants. His Cyclozoa and Inordozoa represent morphologically simple and more complex classes of coelenterates, respectively. Also attributed to the Coelenterata is Trilobozoa, forms with three‐rayed symmetry. Still other forms were considered likely colonial coelenterates, the Petalonamae, with families Erniettidae and Pteridinidae. A variety of bilaterally symmetrical forms such as Dickinsonia and Vendia were considered to be bilaterian animals of the Phylum Proarticulata. Other genera were considered more or less closely related to Phanerozoic animals. This classification scheme has not been widely adopted outside of the former Soviet Union. As with Fedonkin's classification body symmetry is an important characteristic in the schemes of Erwin et al. (2011) (see also Xiao & Laflamme, 2009; Laflamme et al., 2013) and Grazhdankin (2014), with importance placed on branching and segment nature. Erwin et al. (2011) recognized six units that they considered to be clades: Rangeomorpha, with self‐repeating modular units; Arboreomorpha, with primary branches stitched together into large leaf‐like sheets; Kimberellomorpha, including Kimberella; Erniettomorpha, modular organisms; Dickinsoniomorpha, modular organisms, with a suggestion of shrinkage and movement; and Triradialomorpha, with three planes of symmetry. In addition to these clades, they also recognized three other possible clades of bilaterialomorphs, bilaterally symmetrical forms with anterior–posterior differentiation, tetraradialomorphs and pentaradialomorphs. Most of these groups are considered to be megascopic organisms of unknown affinities. Only Kimberellomorpha are considered members of a crown‐group phylum, and Dickinsoniomorpha are considered likely animals. For both Kimberellomorpha and Dickinsoniomorpha, the association of body fossils with their supposed trace fossils has been used as an argument for their being within Metazoa. At least with respect to Dickinsonia this seems unsubstantiated: in Seilacher's (e.g. Seilacher & Gishlick, 2015) view, these fossils simply provide evidence for movement in one vendobiont. In the scheme of Grazhdankin (2014) eight high‐level taxonomic groups are attributed to three major clades. The Vendobionta, with no relationship to the Eumetazoa, are forms with serial or fractal quilting and comprise the Rangeomorpha, Dickinsoniomorpha, and Petalonamae. The Frondomorpha are frond‐shaped forms with a discoidal holdfast. Tribrachiomorphs and bilaterialomorphs are considered eumetazoans. There are obvious general similarities between the above classifications although they differ in detail. For example in the scheme of Fedonkin (1987), Spriggina is possibly an arthropod, in that of Erwin et al. (2011) it is a bilaterialomorph, whereas in that of Grazhdankin (2014) it is a dickinsoniomorph. These classification schemes are valuable in that they make claims for what may be natural groups, and so direct attention to their evaluation. But although both Erwin et al. (2011) and Grazhdankin (2014) present their classifications in terms of phylogenetic systematics, it is important to recall that these are morpho‐groups. Features that are presented as being synapomorphies in these classifications could well be homologous – but without known sister‐group comparisons and character polarity, claims for synapomorphies cannot be made, and it is erroneous to describe several of the above groups as clades or monophyletic clades. Our understanding of Ediacara‐type fossils is still at a stage where the primary task must be a search for homologous structures and we therefore do not rely heavily on the above classification schemes. Apart from their affinities, other controversial aspects of the Ediacarans are the extent to which they exhibit biogeographical differentiation, and the degree to which the different forms can be stratigraphically resolved. Waggoner (1999) recognised three assemblages, the Avalonian, White Sea and Nama, and found that they formed a temporal succession, with the Avalonian assemblage being the oldest. The oldest ‘Avalonian’ assemblages essentially consist of ‘fractal’ forms that make up the Rangeomorpha; the middle, ‘White Sea’ assemblages contain many classical Ediacaran taxa such as Spriggina and Dickinsonia; and the youngest ‘Nama’ assemblage is a rather low‐diversity assemblage of forms such as Swartpuntia and Ernietta, and also contains the earliest biomineralized animals such as Cloudina. It later became apparent that Waggoner's (1999) assemblages also represented different environments, raising the possibility that their apparent temporal succession was controlled by changing facies rather than being a true stratigraphical succession (Grazhdankin, 2004, 2014; Gehling & Droser, 2013). For example, in the area around Ediacara itself, elements of all three of these assemblages were found in the Ediacara Member of the Rawnsley Quartzite Formation (Gehling & Droser, 2013). Although the pattern is clearly more complex than a simple non‐overlapping three‐fold biozonation, it still holds true that the youngest and oldest known assemblages are highly distinct (fig. 7 in Grazhdankin, 2014). The earliest assemblages still consist almost entirely of fronds and fractal forms (i.e. members of the Rangeomorpha), whereas the youngest contain a low diversity of forms such as Pteridinium, Ernietta and Swartpuntia, together with the frondomorph Charniodiscus (Grazhdankin, 2014). Thus, relative to the original formulation of Waggoner (1999), the three zones are somewhat telescoped together, although they can still be distinguished. Here we consider the ‘Ediacarans’ to consist of the classical taxa known from South Australia, Namibia, the White Sea, Avalonia, etc., excluding trace fossils, obvious algae and organisms with hard parts. In principle, if the relationships between the Ediacarans can be clarified, and one or more characters can be found to relate at least one of them to an extant group, then we might achieve a greater understanding of the role Ediacarans potentially played in animal evolution. One difficulty in understanding Ediacaran relationships arises from the concentration of studies on only one or two forms. Dickinsonia has probably been the subject of most speculations about its affinity, including such highly surprising claims as its being a lichen (e.g. Retallack, 2007). Understanding one form will always be problematic in the absence of a broader consideration of related taxa, which may show wide variation in morphology. At least some Ediacarans seem to be clearly related, at least in terms of shared morphological features. For example, the various rangeomorphs – e.g. Bradgatia, Fractofusus, Rangea, Charnia, etc., show pronounced similarities (Brasier & Antcliffe, 2004; Laflamme et al., 2013). Similarly, some of the fronds and broadly bilateral forms are also likely to be related. For example, Spriggina (Fig. 2B) shows an asymmetric ‘head’ region, a double axial row of offset structures, and abaxial features with pronounced geniculation. All these structures are found in Ivovicia rugulosa (Fig. 2A – see Ivantsov, 2007), and to a greater or lesser extent in Yorgia waggoneri (Fig. 3), Dickinsonia lissa, Swartpuntia, Archaeaspinus (Fig. 4A) and Marywadea (among others, such as perhaps Pteridinium, Fig. 2C), many of which are grouped in Fedonkin's ‘Proarticulata’ (Fedonkin, 1985). We regard these similarities to be good candidate homologies (Fig. 2A–C). However, as Gehling et al. (2005) remark, merely pointing out similarities may disregard important differences. For example, Dickinsonia (Fig. 4B, E) seems to be a highly flexible (and indeed contractile, e.g. Gehling et al., 2005) organism, whereas taxa such as Pteridinium and Spriggina seem to be more well defined or even somewhat rigid (although this may be overemphasised – see e.g. Grazhdankin & Seilacher, 2002, for preservation of Pteridinium showing high flexibility). If these organisms are related, then they clearly display a certain degree of diversity. Figure 2 Open in figure viewer PowerPoint Ivovicia rugulosa (thread‐like structures from posterior indicated by arrows). (B) Spriggina floundersi (F17354; cast in Cambridge, UK). (C) Pteridinium simplex (field photograph). (D, E) Two possible stem‐group ctenophores. (D) Tribrachidium heraldicum (Holotype SAM P12898; cast in Cambridge, UK). (E) Eoandromeda octobrachiata (JK10903 from Tang et al., 2008 Selected Ediacaran fossils. (A–C) Note their constructional similarities as potential homologies, especially the asymmetrical ‘head’ regions, the axial paired offset repeated structures, the flanking repeated structures and marginal structures. (A)(thread‐like structures from posterior indicated by arrows). (B)(F17354; cast in Cambridge, UK). (C)(field photograph). (D, E) Two possible stem‐group ctenophores. (D)(Holotype SAM P12898; cast in Cambridge, UK). (E)(JK10903 from Tang). Scales: mm scales in (A–C, E); scale bar, 2 cm in (C), 2 mm in (D). Photo credits: (A) Andrej Ivantsov; (B) Jim Gehling; (C) S. J.; (D) Martin Smith; (E) Stefan Bengtson. Figure 3 Open in figure viewer PowerPoint Yorgia waggoneri from Nilpena, Australia (resin reconstruction SAM P40110; South Australia Museum), showing the apparent marginal diverticulae (arrow). Scale bar, 10 mm. Photo: Jim Gehling. Figure 4 Open in figure viewer PowerPoint Archaeaspinus fedonkini (PIN 3993/5053), (B) Dickinsonia sp. (PIN 3993/5173), (C) Paravendia janae (3993/5070), (D) Vendia rachiata (PIN 4853/63), (E) Dickinsonia costata (F17462; Wade, 1972 2008 1992 Kimberella (see Fig. Selected Ediacaran fossils. (A)(PIN 3993/5053), (B)sp. (PIN 3993/5173), (C)(3993/5070), (D)(PIN 4853/63), (E)(F17462; Wade,). Panels (A–D) are from the White Sea area; (E) from the Ediacara area. Scale bars: (A, C, D) 1 mm; (B) 5 mm; (E) 20 mm. Photo credits: (A–D) Andrej Ivantsov; (E) Martin Smith. In (E) ‘s’ indicates the ‘spatulate’ low‐resistance segment of Brasier & Antcliffe (); ‘t’ shows the region considered a pharynx by e.g. Jenkins (): note, however, its possible similarity to the terminal structure in(see Fig. 5 A). The relationships between the various fronds are also controversial. For example, it has been suggested that the ‘fractal’ forms such as Charnia are unrelated to at least some Charniodiscus (Laflamme et al., 2013; D. Grazhdankin, personal communication). The genus Charniodiscus itself seems to be heterogeneous (J. Cuthil Hoyall, personal communication; J. Antcliffe, personal communication), but at least some do not appear to show the characteristically divided branches seen in Charnia. Nevertheless, Brasier & Antcliffe (2004) and Brasier, Antcliffe & Liu (2012) imply with transformational series that all these forms may be related. Perhaps the most interesting recent suggestion of Ediacaran affinities was based on Eoandromeda (Fig. 2E), which was described as a stem‐group ctenophore or coelenterate (Tang et al., 2008, 2011; Zhu et al., 2008; Xiao et al., 2013) from the Doushantou Formation of South China and from the Ediacara Member of South Australia. This taxon is of great interest as it has been found both in the typical Ediacara‐type preservation as moulds and casts in relatively coarse sediments, and also as flattened carbonaceous films, more like the exceptional preservation in Lower Palaeozoic lagerstätten. This is important as it confirms that the unusual preservation at the base of sandstone beds is due to particular taphonomic conditions rather than unique organism properties. Eoandromeda possesses eight spiralling arms that seem to be attached to a globular body, and which are characterised by dark transverse lines; at the apex of the organism, the arms appear to be linked into a small ring‐like structure. Taken together, these features suggest affinities with ctenophores, with the dark transverse lines potentially representing ctenes. Remarkable ctenophore embryos have been described from the basal Cambrian of China (Chen et al., 2007) that show very similar structures, including, critically, the annular structure at the apex. Note that extant ctenophores, rather than being biradially symmetrical as traditionally described, also show elements of rotational symmetry (e.g. Martindale & Henry, 1999). This reconstruction suggests affinities with taxa such as Tribrachidium (Fig. 2D; Glaessner & Daily, 1959) and Albumares (Keller & Fedonkin, 1977). It is possible to compare Tribrachidium to some of the so‐called bilaterialomorph taxa such as Ivovicia rugulosa (Fig. 2A; Ivantsov, 2004). These typically do not show bilateral symmetry, with the exception of some specimens of Dickinsonia, instead showing a staggered pattern between the sides of the annulations of the body; further, the ‘head’ region also shows a striking asymmetry, and we tentatively suggest that these head regions are comparable to a pair of the three branch‐like structures seen in the centre of Tribrachidium (Hall et al., 2015). Nevertheless, at least some specimens of Dickinsonia costata do show the annulations clearly crossing the midline unbroken (e.g. fig. 6 of Gehling et al., 2005). Can these differences be reconciled? One possibility is that the upper and lower surfaces of Dickinsonia differed, with one symmetrical and one asymmetrical; we explore this possibility further below. Although Ediacara‐type organisms have often been depicted as relatively flat forms it is evident that this was not the case for the vast majority (e.g. Gehling et al., 2005). One relatively neglected feature of Ediacarans is the presence of apparent internal body cavities, for example in the remarkable specimens of Dickinsonia illustrated by Dzik & Ivantsov (2002), Ivantsov (2004) and Zhang & Reitner (2006) (see plate 101 and fig. 4 in Glaessner & Wade, 1966, and discussion in Jenkins, 1992) with an apparent set of branching diverticulae of relatively consistent form, and a broad central structure described as a pharynx (Fig. 4B), which may be similar to structures seen in taxa such as Paravendia janae and Vendia rachiata (Fig. 4C, D; Ivantsov, 2004). Although these features have been considered by some to be merely contractional wrinkling (Gehling et al., 2005) or even characteristic features of lichens (Retallack, 2007), their relatively consistent form and symmetry within the body suggests that they reflect true structures; the three‐dimensional features in taxa such as Vendia and Paravendia are very unlikely to be preservational artefacts. Potential internal canals or diverticulae are also seen in Yorgia wagonneri (Fig. 3; Ivantsov, 1999), Anfesta stankovskii (Fedonkin, 1984) and Albumares brunsae (Keller & Fedonkin, 1977), as well as Cyanorus singularis (Ivantsov, 2004), the latter of which seems to show both external rugosity and internal branching structures (plate 1 and figs 1–6 in Ivantsov, 2004; see also discussion in Dzik & Martyshyn, 2015). The presence of branching internal channels has implications for the constructional morphology of these taxa. For example, the organisms do not seem to be of a simple ‘air‐bed’ construction made of a single set of inflated modules, as the channels seem to lie internally (Dzik & Martyshyn, 2015; thus, the external rugosity drapes over them rather than being integrated with them (Fig. 4B). A taxon like Dickinsonia is thus likely to have had a distinct upper and lower surface, separated by an internal cavity containing the channels; this internal cavity is likely to have been filled with ECM or some other inert material. Jenkins (1992), without illustration, argues that about 5% of Dickinsonia specimens show distortions consistent with the organism being a ‘somewhat under‐stuffed sausage’, with the upper and lower surfaces sometimes rolling around the ‘stuffing’ to present atypical preservation. Flexibility in Dickinsonia is also indicated in transported specimens (Evans, Droser & Gehling, 2015). Although there have been persistent claims in the literature that the upper and lower surfaces of Dickinsonia differ (e.g. Wade, 1972; Jenkins, 1992), this still remains unclear (for discussion, see Gehling et al., 2005; Brasier & Antcliffe, 2008). The presence of both bilaterally symmetrical and asymmetrical Dickinsonia specimens may, however, imply that the two surfaces did differ (Wade, 1972; Gehling et al., 2005). Perhaps a critical test of this view would be provided by the morphology of a taxon like Pteridinium, and whether or not its vanes are composed of one or two layers of tube‐like structures (i.e. a direct comparison of the views of Grazhdankin & Seilacher, 2002 versus Jenkins, 1992); current imaging has not allowed definitive resolution of this issue (Meyer et al., 2014a). Conversely, in at least Stromatoveris from the Chengjiang biota (Shu et al., 2006), a Cambrian form potentially related to Ediacarans (Section III.2), the construction seems to be clear: a double wall surrounding a central cavity, with the walls themselves constructed of tubes. If the above conjectures about morphological similarities between the circular and ‘bilaterialomorph’ taxa are correct, then the probable body axis homology would be between the dorsal–ventral axis in forms like Eoandromeda or Tribrachidium and the anterior–posterior axis in Spriggina or Dickinsonia. In other words, the principal body axis for the former taxa would be in and out of the sediment surface, and along it for the latter. It would suggest that forms such as Spriggina and Dickinsonia possessed rotational symmetry around their anterior–posterior axis (just as Eoandromeda has around its dorsal–ventral axis), which would explain the asymmetric ‘head’ regions in taxa such as Ivovicia and Archaeaspinus fedonkini. Very speculatively, if Dickinsonia had one surface divided in the middle and one surface not, then it may too possess a modified threefold symmetry.

(5) The problem of Kimberella Perhaps the most discussed Ediacaran taxon is Kimberella (Fig. 5). We will look at this form in some detail as it is currently probably the only late Ediacaran fossil form that, although initially interpreted as a cnidarian (e.g. Glaessner & Daily, 1959), is now more or less universally accepted as a bilaterian metazoan, even by advocates of the Vendobionta. It also serves to illustrate the typical problems that are encountered in the interpretation of Ediaraca‐type fossils. Found in Australia and Russia, well‐preserved material exhibits a wealth of detail not generally seen in other late Ediacaran macroscopic fossils, and it is also remarkable in being found with fan‐shaped markings, apparently in direct continuation with the body fossils, that have been interpreted as trace fossils made by this organism (Fedonkin & Waggoner, 1997; Fedonkin, Simonetta & Ivantsov, 2007; Ivantsov, 2009, 2010, 2012, 2013). Specimens range from a few millimetres to 15 cm in length, and show considerable variation in morphology, some of which is taphonomic, but some of which may also reflect growth of the animal. Especially in material from Russia, dated to about 555 Ma, the fossils have been interpreted to show evidence for muscle fibres, mantle folds, a non‐mineralized shell or dorsal cover, possibly with small sclerites, and a supposed head region. A neck‐like anterior portion has been interpreted as a proboscis or introvert (Gehling et al., 2005; Gehling, Runnegar & Droser, 2014), with possible teeth (Ivantsov, 2009, 2012), although the latter look similar to structures in the ‘posterior’ of the animal that have been interpreted as longitudinal muscle. In some specimens this structure is also remarkably similar to Parvancorina (see also Grazhdankin, 2014), raising the possibility that the latter is merely part of a larger organism. Figure 5 Open in figure viewer PowerPoint Kimberella quadrata from the White Sea area in two different preservational aspects. (A) PIN4853/314 showing the ‘anterior’ introvert with a mushroom‐shaped terminal body resembling Parvancorina (arrowed). (B) PIN 4853/334 in ‘frond‐like’ position surrounded by the supposed feeding traces (ridges arrowed). Scale bar in (A), 2 mm; mm scale in (B). Photo credits: Andrej Ivantsov. It is probably not an overstatement to say that most of the above analyses of anatomical detail are open to discussion, and there remains little consensus on the placement of Kimberella. Erwin & Valentine (2013) considered it to be one of the few Ediacaran body fossils that require placement higher than the Cnidaria; most authors have, with varying degrees of confidence, considered it to be a mollusc or mollusc‐like. Erwin et al. (2011) confidently assigned it to the crown metazoa, possibly as a mollusc, and, perhaps not very helpfully, erected the ‘clade’ Kimberellomorpha for Kimberella together with Solza, a form that Grazhdankin (2014) considered a likely taphonomic variety of Kimberella. This argument was based largely on an associated fan‐shaped trace fossil claimed to show that Kimberella possessed a radula. Seilacher (1999) noted general similarities in the mode of preservation of Kimberella to that of experiments using modern molluscs such as the polyplacophoran Katharina. Although the animals in these experiments were placed in an orientation inverted relative to that of the preservation of Kimberella, there are intriguing general similarities. In some recent studies Kimberella has been accepted as a stem mollusc (Stöger et al., 2013; Schrödl & Stöger, 2014; Vinther, 2015) although this seems to be based more on the authors' argument that such animals should have existed at this time than on defining morphological features, or on the presence of very general bilaterian structures (Scheltema, 2014). Ivantsov (2009, 2012) instead suggested a more general placement in the ‘Trochozoa’. There have been few attempts to trace Cambrian relatives, although Caron et al. (2006) and Smith (2012), remarked on possible relationships with Odontogriphus, and Seilacher (1999) and Dzik (2011) suggested possible links to halwaxiids. As mentioned above, Kimberella has been found associated with systems of variously developed paired ridges (Fig. 5B). Whereas Kimberella is typically preserved in negative relief on bed bases the associated sets consist of ridges on the bases of beds or grooves on bed tops. This difference in toponomy has been interpreted as the result of an animal raking microbial mats. Associated with these ridges and grooves are occasional sand pellets, which have been interpreted to have formed during the raking process, although their sometimes angular shape raises questions as to their origins (for example, they may be casts of pyrite crystals). Although direct comparison has been made to scratches from molluscan radulae, most explicitly by Seilacher & Hagadorn (2000), their development in elongate fan‐shaped forms and the considerable length of the scratches makes this unlikely (Ivantsov, 2009; Gehling et al., 2014). If the organism stayed in one place and reached forward to form a series of parallel scratches (as in Gehling et al., 2014) then it would have required a very long introvert in order to create the observed pattern, and this has not been seen. The sharpness of the ridges show that they were not formed in the mat but rather in sediment underlying the mat. The full length of the paired ridges therefore probably cannot be directly observed as they would only be preserved where they penetrate the mat. Following the finds of Kimberella body fossils in positions that suggest a direct association with the ridges, the most common interpretation is that they form a true association, but considerable uncertainty remains as to how the scratches were formed and by what type of device. The spatial association of fans and body fossils suggest a substantial amount of back and forth movement and with the supposed head region pointing away from the direction of motion (Ivantsov, 2009, 2012; Gehling et al., 2014). Note that Kimberella body fossils found associated with supposed mucus trails also indicate movement in a direction contrary to that expected. It has been suggested that the ridges were formed by a radula, but a better comparison would probably be with the feeding organs of echiurans. Although not our preferred interpretation, there thus remain sufficient uncertainties in the interpretation of the fan‐shaped ridges that a non‐trace fossil interpretation should not be discarded (see also Brasier, 2009, p. 161). As with all Ediacara‐type fossils a critical question is whether to look for similarities or differences with living animals; taken to extremes these may lead to radically different conclusions. For example, there is a curious similarity of some elongate Kimberella to fronds (Fig. 5B). Continuing this comparison, the rounded terminal structures would be attachments and the radiating ridges would be interpreted as body fossil parts. General similarities can also be found between Kimberella and Palaeophragmodictya spinosa (Serezhnikova, 2009), with an outer zone and an inner zone with ‘hand’‐like structures that in Kimberella have been interpreted as longitudinal muscle. The possibility that Kimberella is coelenterate grade should therefore not be excluded (see also Erwin, 2008). On a more general note, we find that the apparently unique sets of morphological, and possibly behavioural, traits in Kimberella mean that, although likely a metazoan, its placement remains problematic; it may be on the bilaterian stem group rather than within the stem group of any particular phylum – this is not incompatible with it retaining some coelenterate‐grade features (e.g. Fig. 5B). One reason for suggesting that Kimberella is a stem bilaterian is the presence of the introvert (arrowed in Fig. 5A), the functional morphology of which may imply the use of hydrostatic pressure generated by an internalised body cavity such as a coelom; a typical bilaterian (and not ‘coelenterate’) feature.

(6) Ediacaran affinities What then, are the Ediacarans? The evidence we review above strongly suggests that many fall into the stem regions around the base of the Animalia, Epitheliozoa and Eumetazoa. In particular, their three‐dimensionality, sometimes contractile nature and presence of internal structures all militate strongly against the ‘Vendobionta’ theory of Seilacher (1992). We thus continue to think (see Budd & Jensen, 2000) that a strong prima facie case exists to consider them as falling into various fairly basal stem groups of large animal clades. An additional point in favour of their interpretation as stem‐group metazoans is the fractal organisation of the early fronds such as Rangea; a large surface area (especially given the lack of any other feeding structures) may imply that these organisms fed, at least partly, via absorption of DOC from the sea water (e.g. Seilacher, 1984; Laflamme, Xiao & Kowalewski, 2009; Hoyal Cuthill & Conway Morris, 2014), a mode of feeding also known from sponges and choanoflagellates (Gold et al., 1970; de Goeij et al., 2008). Recent hydrodynamic modelling has highlighted the advantages to such osmotrophs of being raised above the sea floor (Ghisalberti et al., 2014), an ecological selective force that may have led to the development of gastrulation‐like mechanisms during development in order to generate an elevated structure. Rothman, Hayes & Summons (2003) suggested that the Proterozoic sea contained an enormous dissolved organic carbon reservoir, although this reconstruction has been recently challenged (Johnston et al., 2012). The presence of frond‐like Ediacarans in deep‐water deposits such as at Mistaken Point (Narbonne, 2005) also suggests that they did not rely on photosynthesis for nutrition (i.e. that they were heterotrophs). Comparison with sponges suggests that if they were osmotrophs, a substantial symbiotic community of bacteria was necessary (Yahel et al., 2003). Their appearance in the fossil record about 50 Ma after the end of the Marinoan glaciation at c. 630 Ma may thus truly record something close to the first stem‐group animals, with the possible implication, given the continuity of the choanocyte, that they also filter‐fed. The continuing absence of anything that could be convincingly considered to be a sponge (Antcliffe et al., 2014) from the Precambrian (with the only exception perhaps provided by a demosponge‐like taxon from the White Sea area that is figured, but not described, by Reitner & Wörheide, 2002) may imply that the crown‐group sponges radiated as a monophyletic group in the Cambrian explosion like many other groups. Although this view continues to place the origin, not just of the bilaterians, but of crown‐group animals, considerably later than molecular clock evidence suggests (Peterson et al., 2004; Peterson & Butterfield, 2005; see also dos Reis et al., 2015 for uncertainties in clock estimates of animal origins), we regard it as reasonable to state that there are no convincing crown‐group animals in the fossil record until the first trace fossils appear at around 565 Ma or so (Liu et al., 2014b). As well as a likely stem‐group animal placement for the early rangeomorphs, the various forms that cluster around Dickinsonia to Eoandromeda seem likely to consist of two body layers separated by an inner substance (ECM?) within which are internal branching canals. This would be a classical diploblastic organisation; this view of these taxa is reinforced by the ctenophore‐like features of Eoandromeda. This is not to say that all these taxa are stem‐group ctenophores (or, indeed, cnidarians). Nevertheless, the apparent presence of some sort of internal cavity is consonant with, and indeed required by, these organisms lying within the ‘coelenterate’ grade as marked on Fig. 1. It is thus possible that ctenophores living today have retained some profound plesiomorphies that were present along the various metazoan stem‐groups. Overall, we regard this evidence as strongly supporting a placement within a ‘coelenterate’ grade (see comments by Zhang & Reitner, 2006, who come to very similar conclusions). Many of the macroscopic Ediacaran fossils of possible animal affinity, although not united into a monophyletic clade, may thus be considered to be a plesiomorphic collection of stem‐group animals that must necessarily include stem‐group sponges and ctenophores and, after the stepwise appearance of taxa such as the (unknown) makers of early trace fossils, and the first skeletonised taxa such as Cloudina (Grant, 1990), stem‐group cnidarians and bilaterians. These rather tentative hints allow a more general view to be taken of Ediacaran affinities: the rangeomorphs, based on general considerations such as their modularity and inferred feeding modes, are likely to be very basal or stem‐group metazoans, and the Eoandromeda group are total‐group ctenophores. Given that early Ediacaran forms usually have divided (‘fractal’) branches, and ones that emerge later do not, then perhaps some forms may represent a fractal to non‐fractal transition (see also Brasier & Antcliffe, 2004; Brasier et al., 2012). This allows the stems of metazoan taxa to be tentatively populated by various Ediacarans (Fig. 6). It should be noted that in this view, crown‐group cnidarians, bilaterians and sponges did not emerge until very close to, or potentially even after, the beginning of the Cambrian. Figure 6 Open in figure viewer PowerPoint Fractofusus; b, Charnia (‘fractal’ form); c, Charniodiscus (non‐fractal form); d, Tribrachidium; e, Eoandromeda; f, Dickinsonia; g, Spriggina; h, Haootia; i, Kimberella. X marks the transition from fractal (i.e. at least partly osmotrophic) to non‐fractal fronds within the stem group of the Epitheliozoa; Y marks the ‘coelenterate’‐grade complex of taxa including Dickinsonia, Spriggina and related forms (see text for details). In the absence of both fossil and molecular clock data, the timing of the origin of crown‐group Apoikozoa (marked ‘?’) remains uncertain. Images adapted from Seilacher ( 1992 2009 et al. ( 2008 2012 Liu et al. (2014a) An apoikozoan phylogeny (placozoans omitted) showing the possible positions of selected Ediacaran taxa. a,; b,(‘fractal’ form); c,(non‐fractal form); d,; e,; f,; g,; h,; i,. X marks the transition from fractal (i.e. at least partly osmotrophic) to non‐fractal fronds within the stem group of the Epitheliozoa; Y marks the ‘coelenterate’‐grade complex of taxa includingand related forms (see text for details). In the absence of both fossil and molecular clock data, the timing of the origin of crown‐group Apoikozoa (marked ‘?’) remains uncertain. Images adapted from Seilacher (), Xiao & Laflamme (), Zhu), Ivantsov () and Given that the majority or all of these forms appear to be benthic, the question arises: how were they feeding? The presence of a set of branching internal cavities attached to a central tube strongly suggests that an opening to the outside must exist, even if evidence for it is slim (e.g. Jenkins, 1992; Dzik & Ivantsov, 2002; see comments in Gehling et al., 2005). The apparent absence of a mouth in these forms has been taken as strong evidence that they are not animals. However, this point is not unsurmountable. The mouth may be small or lie on a margin (as suggested by our symmetry homologies in Section II.4) where it would be difficult to detect. To take extant benthic ctenophores as a useful analogy, they largely feed with long and feathery retractable tentacles that gather food from the water column (Rankin, 1956). Although these would be unlikely to be preserved, there are perhaps suggestions of such structures in the type specimen of Ivovicia rugulosa (Fig. 2A), which displays slender thread‐like objects around the ‘posterior’ of the organism. Another possibility is provided by the slight, but perhaps intriguing similarity of the supposed ‘pharynx’ region of Dickinsonia to the terminal structure of Kimberella (Figs 4E and 5A), suggesting that Dickinsonia perhaps also possessed an introvert‐like structure. Its position at the base of the so‐called ‘spatulate segment’ of Brasier & Antcliffe (2008), which is a region of apparent structural weakness, may be of significance. However, we wish to stress that there is no particular reason to think of the Ediacaran taxa as being direct ancestors of the modern (and derived, see Simion et al., 2015) benthic ctenophores.