Soft-body fossils with morphology characteristic of the Cambrian have been uncovered in Morocco, dated 20 million years post-extinction. The 2010 paper by Roy, Orr, Botting, and their collaborators that announced the discovery, suggests that Cambrian species persisted into the mid-Paleozoic. They argue that what had been interpreted as a Cambrian-Ordovician extinction is instead an artifact resulting from a gap in the stratigraphic record,. with remainsRemains of soft-bodied animals prevalent in earlier, exceptional Cambrian fossil beds were only preserved in later, Ordovician deposits in those rare places where special conditions promoted fossilization of soft bodies.<ref>{{cite journal |author1=Roy, P.V. |author2=Orr, P.J. |author3=Botting, J.P. |author4=Muir, L.A. |author5=Vinther, J. |author6=Lefebvre, B. |author7=el Hariri, K. |author8=Briggs, D.E.G. |name-list-style=amp |year=2010 |title=Ordovician faunas of Burgess Shale type |journal=Nature |volume=465 |issue=7295 |pages=215–218 |doi=10.1038/nature09038 |pmid=20463737|bibcode=2010Natur.465..215V |s2cid=4313285 }}</ref>
