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biological big bang

  1. (biology) The Cambrian explosion (the rapid appearance, around 541 million years ago, of most major animal phyla).
    • 2022 November 22, Donna Lu, “The real paleo diet: researchers find traces of world’s oldest meal in 550m-year-old fossil”, in The Guardian[1]:
      Brocks said the new study suggested the Ediacaran biota “already contained some of the creatures that gave rise to the [Cambrian] explosion, to the rise of modern animals”. The Cambrian explosion, also called the biological big bang, was a period about 538.8m years ago when almost all major animal groups started to appear in the fossil record.