Ordovician Lagerstätten: The Llanfallteg Biota

Sites of exceptional fossil preservation are vital to understanding the history of life. The Llanfallteg Biota is an important, but yet only partly studied deposit in South Wales, which has yielded some remarkable fossils thanks entirely to the extraordinary collections of amateur palaeontologist Cedric Connolly. This video explores the Llanfallteg Biota, including what has already been described... and some sneak previews about what has not. The deposit is Middle Ordovician in age, with preservation similar to the Cambrian Burgess Shale-type faunas (and some animals that wouldn't look out of place there!). The initial story, when it was published around 2016, was that it showed survival of some typical 'Cambrian' animals into deep water in the Ordovician... but its wider importance is yet to be fully explored. Papers: https://www.academia.edu/download/429... https://www.academia.edu/download/379... https://web.archive.org/web/201910261... https://bioone.org/journals/acta-pala... https://palaeo-electronica.org/conten... Presented by Joe Botting, independent palaeontologist and Honorary Research Fellow at the National Museum Wales. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Channel Membership: to support the channel for £3.99 per month, please investigate the 'join' button underneath the video. You can expect 2-3 extra videos per month, showing current research, related mainly to the Ordovician Castle Bank Biota.