Ediacaran organisms leave quite an impression, which is rare for soft-bodied biota. Beautifully bizarre, their shapes vary from leaf-like, to three-armed, to flat, to "quilted." In the shallow coastal seas of the "Garden of Ediacara," photosynthetic and chemosynthetic symbionts help some of these organisms grow large, while others graze on plentiful bacteria. These gelatinous creatures have no hard parts and no predators. Theirs was a pre-armored world.
Ediacaran fossils are found all over the world. Evolutionary biologists disagree about the nature of these enigmatic beings, since none of their relations survive to tell the tale. The delicate Ediacarans, an evolutionary experiment in life forms, go gently into that good night.