A discovery of a huge number of soft-bodied marine animal fossils is giving these critters a fair shake in the fossil record.

Paleontologists found more than 1,500 soft-bodied marine animal fossils, some dating to nearly 500 million years ago. The discovery provides a more complete understanding of marine life at that time and suggests that these soft-bodied sea animals did not die off during a major extinction event during the Cambrian period, as previously thought.