50 , 000 Fossils Unearthed in China Reveal 91 Previously Unknown Species

womansworld.com · Feb 27, 2026 · Collected from GDELT

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A team of researchers working in China’s Hunan province has unearthed more than 50,000 fossil specimens from one small quarry, identifying 91 previously unknown species that lived approximately 512 million years ago — shortly after an ancient mass extinction wiped out much of early animal life. A compact site with an enormous yield The fossils come from a quarry measuring just 12 meters high, 30 meters long and eight meters wide. Han Zeng of the Chinese Academy of Scientists described the site as “extraordinary,” telling AFP: “We have collected over 50,000 fossil specimens from a single quarry that is 12 meters high, 30 meters long and eight meters wide.” The collection has been named the Huayuan biota, after the county where it was found. Fossils were collected between 2021 and 2024, representing years of meticulous excavation and study. In total, researchers uncovered more than 150 species, 91 of which are entirely new to science. The findings were published in the journal Nature. Han spoke of the “wonderful experiences when we realized that those animals were right there on the rock.” Soft tissues survived half a billion years What sets this discovery apart is the quality of preservation. Most fossils preserve only hard parts like bones, shells and teeth. Soft tissues such as skin, internal organs and nerves almost never survive fossilization because they decay too quickly. The Huayuan biota fossils are different. Han said: “Many fossils show soft parts including gills, guts, eyes and even nerves.” That level of detail — the delicate structure of a gill, the faint tracing of a nerve pathway — gives scientists an extraordinarily close look at how these ancient organisms’ bodies actually worked, not just their outward shapes. The species discovered include ancient relatives of worms, sponges and jellyfish. Researchers also identified numerous arthropods, including radiodonts, described as apex predators of the time. Han Zeng/www.nature.com Life recovering from catastrophe The timing of these fossils is what makes them scientifically pivotal. They date to around 512 million years ago, shortly after a mass extinction called the Sinsk event, which occurred approximately 513 million years ago and is associated with declining oxygen levels. The Sinsk event brought a brutal end to a period known as the Cambrian explosion, which began roughly 540 million years ago and marked a rapid diversification of animal life. Many of those newly diversified creatures were wiped out. The Sinsk event is not classified among the “Big Five” mass extinctions in Earth’s history, but its consequences were clearly profound. Han said there is evidence of 18 or more mass extinctions over the past 540 million years. The Huayuan biota captures the world immediately after one of those catastrophes. According to Han, the fossils represent the first major discovery of soft-bodied organisms that lived directly after the Sinsk event. Han said the fossils “open a new window into what happened.” Deep water as a shelter from extinction One key finding involves which creatures survived the Sinsk event and why. Michael Lee, an evolutionary biologist at the South Australian Museum who was not involved in the research, said: “the new fossils from China demonstrate that the Sinsk event affected shallow water forms most severely.” Lee compared the survival patterns to the coelacanth, a deep-water fish that survived the mass extinction that eliminated non-avian dinosaurs. Its deep-ocean habitat essentially shielded it from the chaos at the surface. He told AFP: “The deep ocean is one of the most stable environments through geological time, in a similar way to how the cellar of a house is buffered from daily and seasonal changes and has less temperature fluctuations than the attic.” Creatures living in those dark, stable depths were insulated from the oxygen decline and environmental upheaval that devastated species in shallower waters. A surprise connection to Canada’s Burgess Shale Perhaps the most unexpected finding involves a famous fossil site thousands of miles away: Canada’s Burgess Shale, which dates to an earlier phase of the Cambrian explosion. Han said that some species found in the Chinese quarry had previously been identified only at the Burgess Shale site. “It surprised us when we found the Huayuan biota shared various animals with the Burgess Shale, including the arthropods Helmetia and Surusicaris that were previously only known from the Burgess Shale,” Zeng told Reuters. Zeng offered an explanation rooted in ocean currents and larval dispersal: “As larval stages are common in extant marine invertebrates, the best explanation of these shared taxa shall be that the larvae of early animals were capable of spreading by ocean currents since the early days of animals in the Cambrian.” Even half a billion years ago, the ocean was connecting distant communities of life — tiny larvae drifting on ancient currents and establishing populations on faraway shores.