Associate Professor Glenn Anthony Brock explains deep time and the emergence and evolution of bilaterian animals that arose during the Cambrian Explosion. He also shares his experiences of field and lab work and insights about his discipline and academic life. Glenn is a researcher and lecturer with the Department of Biological Sciences at Macquarie University.
The audio of this episode has been archived
Below is an example of more you can learn from Glenn’s Instagram
Credit: @palaeobiologist on Instagram
“Holothurians, or sea cucumbers, are an abundant and diverse group of worm-like, soft-bodied echinoderms. Their modified elongate pentamerous bodies are beautifully suited to be vacuum cleaners of the sea – swallowing huge amounts of sediment, digesting the organic material then pooping out the sediment like a conveyor belt! What a life! 😁👌🏼 Despite appearing to be completely soft bodied most species do have a skeleton – hundreds of microscopic ossicles made of calcite embedded in the body wall. These come in a wide variety of shapes, including this beautiful tiny (0.4 mm across) wheel shaped sclerite from a modern species of Chirodota.”