A "Palaeopascichnid" describes a multitude of elongate fossils made up of multiple sausage-shaped chambers. They appear only in Ediacaran sediments. Fossils of Palaeopascichnids consist of an occasionally branching series of globular or elongate chambers. These fossils started appearing in the

Vendian The Ediacaran ( ) is a geological period of the Neoproterozoic geologic era, Era that spans 96 million years from the end of the Cryogenian Period at 635 Million years ago, Mya to the beginning of the Cambrian Period at 538.8 Mya. It is the last ...

(late Ediacaran) about 580 million years ago. Fossils of Palaeopascichnids are found in

East European platform East European Platform or Russian Platform is a large and flat area of the East European Craton covered by sediments in Eastern Europe spanning from the Ural Mountains to the Tornquist Zone and from the Peri-Caspian Basin to the Barents Sea. O ...

(

White Sea The White Sea (; Karelian language, Karelian and ; ) is a southern inlet of the Barents Sea located on the northwest coast of Russia. It is surrounded by Karelia to the west, the Kola Peninsula to the north, and the Kanin Peninsula to the nort ...

Urals The Ural Mountains ( ),; , ; , or simply the Urals, are a mountain range in Eurasia that runs north–south mostly through Russia, from the coast of the Arctic Ocean to the river Ural (river), Ural and northwestern Kazakhstan.

, Moscow syneclise,

Podolia Podolia or Podillia is a historic region in Eastern Europe located in the west-central and southwestern parts of Ukraine and northeastern Moldova (i.e. northern Transnistria). Podolia is bordered by the Dniester River and Boh River. It features ...

, Finnmark), Siberia ( Olenyok uplift, Uchur-

Maya Maya may refer to: Ethnic groups * Maya peoples, of southern Mexico and northern Central America ** Maya civilization, the historical civilization of the Maya peoples ** Mayan languages, the languages of the Maya peoples * Maya (East Africa), a p ...

basin), South China ( Lantian), Australia (

Flinders Ranges The Flinders Ranges are the largest mountain ranges in South Australia, which starts about north of Adelaide. The ranges stretch for over from Port Pirie to Lake Callabonna. The Adnyamathanha people are the Aboriginal group who have inhab ...

), India ( Tethys),

Avalonia Avalonia was a microcontinent in the Paleozoic era. Crustal fragments of this former microcontinent are terranes in parts of the eastern coast of North America: Atlantic Canada, and parts of the East Coast of the United States, East Coast of the ...

( Charnwood,

Newfoundland Newfoundland and Labrador is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region of Labrador, having a total size of . As of 2025 the population ...

), Romania ( Histria Formation) Palaeopascichnid fossils are believed to be the first ever macroorganisms that show signs of an agglutinated skeleton.

Genera

Genera currently considered to belong to the group include: * Genus ''

Palaeopascichnus ''Palaeopascichnus'' is an Ediacaran fossil comprising a series of lobes, first originating before the Gaskiers glaciation; it is plausibly a protozoan, but probably unrelated to the classical 'Ediacaran biota'. Once thought to represent a trac ...

'' Palij, 1976 ** ''P. delicatus'' Palij, 1976 ** ''P. linearis'' Fedonkin, 1976 ** ''P. gracilis'' Fedonkin, 1985 * Genus '' Orbisiana'' Sokolov, 1976 ** ''O. simplex'' Sokolov, 1976 ** ''O. intorta'' Kolesnikov & Desiatkin, 2022 ** ''O. spumea'' Kolesnikov & Desiatkin, 2022 Orbisiana spumea and grazing trips left by Kimberella

Orbisiana spumea and grazing trips left by Kimberella

References

Trace fossils Ediacaran life Ediacaran Prehistoric animal genera Fossil taxa described in 1972 Enigmatic prehistoric animal genera {{Ediacaran-stub

Genera

See also

References