The couple, both of whom have PhDs in palaeontology, but do not hold academic positions, discovered the site about a decade ago. “Here, it seems, we’ve got everything,” said Botting.ĭr Lucy Muir and Dr Joe Botting examine a fossil specimen at Castle Bank. It is when ecology diversified, as well as animals themselves.”Īlthough other Ordovician fossil sites exist, most are older and preserve only a limited fauna, with few entirely soft-bodied animals. I like to refer to it as ‘when life got interesting’. Muir said: “It coincides with the Great Ordovician Biodiversification event, when animals with hard skeletons were evolving rapidly.

The Castle Bank fossils could help to bridge that gap, providing an insight into how life was evolving at a time when there was virtually no life on land, but animals and algae were thriving in the seas. But by 400m years ago, almost all of these creatures had disappeared, eventually replaced by the ancestors of many modern animals. The Cambrian explosion, which occurred between 540m and 485m years ago, was a period when many new and complex life forms arose. The site is important because it gives us a new window into how life was evolving at the time. Many of the 170-odd fossils discovered so far have preserved soft tissues such as digestive systems, eyes, optic nerves and brains, and include worms, starfish, sponges, crustaceans and extinct arthropods. Photograph: Nature Ecology & Evolution/PA An artist impression of the Castle Bank community of creatures by Yang Dinghua.

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