ABSTRACT
Fossils from Konservat Lagerstätten of Precambrian (Ediacara type) and Cambrian (Burgess type) ages demonstrate how helpless we are in reconstructing organisms without living relatives. This applies even more when only hard parts are preserved. Confronted with “small shelly fossils” of the early Cambrian we are commonly uncertain to which animal phylum they should be attributed, because similarities may only express mainly shared fabricational morphospaces.
