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Agnathans
Jawless fish; oldest know discovery was in the Lower Cambrian, but diversification in Ordovician.
Anomalocaris
Top predator of the Cambrian.
Anoxic
An environment that lacks oxygen (ex: Burgess Preservation).
Apex predator
An animal at the top of the food chain that has no natural predators; not hunted by any other creature in its ecosystem.
Archaeocyathids
Marine sponges that lived during the Cambrian period; some of the earliest known reef-building organisms.
Burgess Shale
Discovered in 1909 on an expedition to collect Cambrian trilobites in the Canadian Rockies by Charles Walcott; one of the major lagerstatten.
Cambrian explosion
Refers to the seemingly instantaneous appearance of many varied animals in the early to middle Cambrian.
Cloudina
One of the earliest know animal fossil with a mineralized skeleton; "tube-dwelling worm" and first organism with a hard shell.
Conodonts
Index fossil for the Ordovician; class of agnathans that evolve in Cambrian but become abundant in the Ordovician.
Coral reef
Underwater structures formed by tiny animals called coral polyps; first appeared in the Ordovician period. Examples include Rugose and Tabulate corals.
Fossil
The remains or traces of ancient plants or animals that have been preserved in rocks over millions of years.
Gastropods
Evolved in the Cambrian period; includes snails. Predators and scavengers, played a role in the decline of stromatolites by grazing. Diversified significantly during the Ordovician.
Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event (GOBE)
This was characterized by an increase in species, genus, family, and order; tripled global diversity.
Global cooling
Caused the Ordovician mass extinction event.
Lagerstatten
An environment where fossils are exceptionally well-preserved, often including soft tissues.
Mass extinction event
A rapid and widespread decrease in the number of species on Earth; occurred at the end of the Ordovician, Devonian, Permian, Triassic, and Cretaceous periods.
Nautiloids
Top predator of the Ordovician; a group of marine mollusks with coiled or straight shells.
Non-vertebrate
Animals that do not have a backbone or spine. This group includes creatures like insects, worms, jellyfish, and snails.
Ordovician mass extinction event
The first great Mass Extinction; likely cause was a global glaciation event.
Radiation
The rapid increase and diversification of life forms or species over a relatively short period of geological time.
Rugose corals
Horn corals
Sea stars
Top predator of the Ordovician; a marine animal with a star-shaped body that lives on the ocean floor.
Sponge reef
Cambrian; underwater structures made by sponges, built from the skeletons of sponges and provide a habitat for various marine life.
Tabulates
Honeycomb corals
Treptichnus pedum
Trace fossil of the Cambrian; preserved worm burrow.
Trilobite
Index fossil of the Cambrian.
Vertebrate
An animal with a backbone or spinal column; Ordovician marks the biodiversification (or radiation) of our own subphylum.
Cambrian explosion, trilobites, treptichnus pedum, Burgess Shale Lagerstatten, and Anomalocaris.
What were the major biology events of the Cambrian?
Trilobites
What was the index fossil of the Cambrian?
Treptichnus pedum
What trace fossil defined the base of the Cambrian?
Ordovician
What period did Bryozoans show up?
Sponges
What were the reefs denominated by during the Cambrian period?
Rugose and Tabulates corals
Which types of corals dominated Ordovician reefs?
Graptolites
What is the index fossil of the Ordovician?
Jawless fish
What were the earliest vertebrates?
Cephalopod nautiloids and sea stars
What were the top predators of the Ordovician?
Note 
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