The excavation was led by paleobiologist Xianfeng Yang of Yunnan University, China, who carefully gathered the fossils of 118 species (including 17 that had previously been unknown) at the site, near the Kunming Gulf. He then analyzed them with Julien Kimmig, who is the collections manager at Penn State’s Mineral Sciences Museum & Art Gallery. They recently published a study in
These fossils are freaky. Not only were weird forms of life frozen in time, but soft-bodied invertebrates that often decomposed before ever getting a chance to fossilize were a rare find. Some of them were even looking back with 3D eyes.