显动宙(也译为显生宙)创新大爆发导致了动物门类的幕式出现,并非"瞬间"或"同时发生"。狭义寒武纪大爆发代表三胚层动物的首次大辐射,包括2大幕(不宜定义为"序幕"和"主幕"):第一幕为"小壳幕",规模较大,基本完成了原口动物亚界中触手担轮类和蜕皮类两大谱系的轮廓构建;第二幕以澄江动物群为代表,它既延续并扩展了前期海绵类、双胚层动物和原口动物的兴旺,更诞生了后口动物亚界完整的"5+1类群":即全部五大现生类群(棘皮类、半索类、头索类、尾索类、脊椎类)的原始代表和"遗失了"的古虫动物门。至此,随着多数动物门类的陆续面世,大爆发宣告基本终结。该爆发的前奏即"埃迪卡拉幕","试验性"地创造了各种成功的和不成功的基础动物和原口动物的少数先驱。寒武纪爆发与其前奏之间并无实质性间断,可合称为显动宙早期创新大爆发,它导致了整棵动物形态树的框架成型。
The Early Phanerozoic grand innovations have produced all three subkingdoms of the whole Animal Tree:Basal Metazoa(including Diploblasta,vendobionts,and sponges),Protostomia,and Deuterostomia.The innovations took place in Ediacaran and Cambrian Explosion.While Ediacaran was responsible for the appearance of various basal metazoans and some pioneers of protostomes,Cambrian Explosion was chiefly composed of two episodes.The first episode,represented by the small skeletal fossils at the base of the Cambrian(the Meishucunian Stage),was responsible for the first radiation of protostomes.The second one,represented by the Chengjiang fauna,saw the emergence of the whole lineage of deuterostomes,which includes both the oldest representatives of all the five major living groups in deuterostomes(echinoderms,hemichordates,urochordates,cephalochordates,and the vertebrates) and an extinct Phylum Vetulicolia.All members of vetulicolians have primitively segmented body with simple gill slits in their anterior division,and most of them probably represent one of the roots in deuterostome subkingdom.Sharing the mosaic basic features of both the bilateral vetulicolians and some primitive echinoderms homalozoans,the soft-bodied vetulocystids are best regarded as one of the roots of the extant pentamerous radial echinoderms.Standing on the "top" of the deuterostome super-branch in the Early Cambrian Animal Tree are the Myllokunmingiids,"the first fish" Myllokunmingia,Haikouichthys,and Zhongjianichthys,which bear the definite paired eyes and the salient proto-vertebrae and then should represent the real root of the whole vertebrates or craniates.On the contrary,yunnanozoans,including Yunnanozoon and Haikouella,possess neither eyes and reliable vertebrae nor myomeres,and may have nothing to do with craniates or vertebrates.On the other hand,sharing a similar body-plan with vetulicolians,yunnanozoans,the enigmatic creatures might be best treated as a side-branch in the lower deuterostomes.