Luke Parry

Luke’s research aims to understand a major event in the history of life referred to as the ‘Cambrian Explosion’, a geologically brief interval during which all of the major groups of animals first appear in the fossil record. This research primarily focuses on investigations of exceptionally preserved fossils from approximately 500 million years ago that retain delicate tissues, such as guts, muscles and nervous systems. This fossil data is combined with phylogenies (evolutionary trees) to understand how the body plans of major groups of animals were assembled and how they have changed over time.