When animals hit the big time.

Focuses on the changes and conditions in the planet and oceans that created a home to complex animals and plants. Discoveries in fossil beds showing the evolutionary groundwork for the Cambrian explosion; Milestones in life's history from 600 million years ago to 500 million years ago; Details of the Doushantuo formation, a Chinese fossil bed; Discussion of why it took 56 million years for the animal diversity that is seen in Burgess Shale to occur; The extinction of the Ediacarans; Factors that could have sped up evolution; View of earth science researcher Nicholas Butterfield about a slower evolutionary clock and animal predation.