Over 500 million years ago, life on Earth transformed from basic cellular organisms to sea creatures that swam, scuttled, and prowled the world’s oceans. The Cambrian Explosion was the beginning of complex life on Earth, the oceans spawning off innumerable flora and fauna.

In this soup of genetic diversity, new evolutionary features appeared, writing the blueprint for how life would change and replicate itself across the eons to follow. Long past the end of the Cambrian Period, the oceans remain evolution’s workshop where new lifeforms join the sprawling menagerie of life on Earth.

You can capture the rich history of aquatic life in this specimen display from Mini Museum, our Ancient Oceans collection.

Every item includes a collection of fossils from across the long history of the oceans' fossil record, showing off the unique forms life has taken across millions of years. Inside, you will find four fossils, one Brachiopod, one section of Horn Coral, one Crinoid, and one Bryozoan. Each of these fossils has been hand-selected and placed within an acrylic gem jar by our team.

All together, these fossils span over 250 million years, from the Bryozoans of the Upper Ordovician (450 MYA) to the Middle Jurassic Crinoids (170 MYA).

Every gem jar ships inside a handsome, glass-topped, riker display case. Also included is a small informational card and large certificate of authenticity with a photo identification guide!

Learn all about these four amazing fossils, including sourcing information and more, in the section below!

Brachiopods first appeared in the Cambrian Explosion’s massive radiation of life and still exist today. Also called lamp-shells, these invertebrates are highly diverse but are usually immobile, remaining stationary on the ocean floor. Across 12,000 plus extinct species and about 350 living, the core body plan of the brachiopod remains much the same: a bivalved shell with an inner musculature. They can be distinguished from clams with their lophophore, an appendage that emerges from the shell to filter feed before retracting back inside. This simple but effective body plan has allowed brachiopods to thrive from the Cambrian Explosion to today’s oceans.

These brachiopods are from the Stegerhynchus genus, dated to the Middle Silurian Period 424 million years ago. They were found in the Waldron Shale Formation of Shelby County, Indiana.

Rugosa was a group of coral that originated during the middle Ordovician Period and persisted into the Permian, ultimately going extinct during the cataclysmic Great Dying extinction event. They are better known as “horn coral” owing to their shape. At their wide end, the rugosa terminates in a cavity called a calice that housed a tentacled polyp. Most of these corals were just a few inches long, while some topped out a few feet in length; they could also live solitarily or in sprawling colonies, forming large reefs. Different genera can be identified by differing septa patterns that line the inner wall of the calice.

These Horn Coral are from the Lophophyllidium proliferum species, dated to the Upper Pennsylvanian Period 295 million years ago. They were found in the Kewitz Shale/Stanton Formation of Cass County, Nebraska.

Crinoids originated in the Early Cambrian and persist to this day, utilizing a simple but effective body plan. During the Paleozoic, most of the organs were held in a pentagon-shaped capsule called a calyx, which was topped with a number of arms used for feeding. Below, a stem attached to a holdfast anchored the animal to a rock surface. This stem was adorned with calcium carbonate plating that formed the theca, protecting the animal and leaving behind plenty of evidence in the fossil record. With this added protection, crinoids have been able to survive into the modern day.

These crinoids are from the Pentacrinites genus, dated to the Middle Jurassic Period 170 million years ago. They were found in eastern Morocco.

Bryozoans still thrive across the world’s oceans, living in sprawling colonies from the coastline to the depths of the abyssal zone. Although bryozoans are small, their anatomy is still quite complex. Their modules are called zooids, each one housing a feeding and digestive system called a polypide. The polypide extends out its lophophore from the zooid to suspension feed, then retracts if faced with danger. This lophophore is comprised of a crown of tentacles (numbering between 8 and 100) that encircle its mouth. A sucking pharynx sends food down into a simple digestive system, supporting each individual module of the colony.

These bryozoans are from the Bastostomella gracilis and Dekayia ulrichi species, dated to the Upper Ordovician Period 450 million years ago. They were found in the Latonia Formation of Caroll County, Kentucky.