Ediacara biota
At the start of the Ediacaran period, much of the acritarch fauna, which had remained relatively unchanged for hundreds of millions of years, became extinct, to be replaced with a range of new, larger species, which would prove far more ephemeral. This radiation, the first in the fossil record, is followed soon after by an array of unfamiliar, large fossils dubbed the Ediacara biota, which flourished for 40 million years until the start of the Cambrian. Most of this "Ediacara biota" were at least a few centimeters long, significantly larger than any earlier fossils. The organisms form three distinct assemblages, increasing in size and complexity as time progressed.