Now that is a lovely fossil.

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2015/06/30/4264400.htm
More than half a billion years ago, a peculiar little creature with rows of spikes on its back and delicate, feather-like front limbs to strain bits of food from the water thrived in the primordial seas of what is now China.

The animal, Collinsium ciliosum, lived during the Cambrian Period, a time of remarkable evolutionary experimentation when many unusual animals appeared and vanished.

“Collinsium is definitely an odd-looking animal, and if one were to bump into one of these during a snorkelling or diving trip nowadays it would be quite shocking,” says University of Cambridge palaeobiologist Javier Ortega-Hernández.

Despite its startling appearance, some people “may like it and regard it as a ‘handsome beast,’” adds palaeontologist Xi-Guang Zhang of Yunnan University in Kunming, China.

The beautifully preserved fossils, which were discovered in the Yunnun Province, are described in the Proceedings of National Academy of Science.
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I think you’ll find it’s around 5,500 years old. Give or take

It’s certainly incredibly well preserved for such a primordial critter.

> lived during the Cambrian Period

While we’re talking about the Cambrian period, the creature above is a cousin of the well-known notorious hallucigenia. Not long after its discovery, it was found that scientists had displayed hallucigenia upside down. But lately in the news, in the past month, was an article that scientists even since then had been mixing up the front end with the back end.

Must be hallucinogenic.