When Life Got Hard

Half a billion years ago a bewildering array of animals evolved, bristling with shells, teeth and spines during a Cambrian explosion of skeletons. Dr Murdock will explain the who, what, when and how of when life got hard for animals, and the world changed forever.

Dr Duncan Murdock is a Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow at Oxford University Museum of Natural History. Dr Murdock’s research is focused on using the fossil record to understand the early evolution of skeletons in animals. He uses high magnification electron microscopes and 3D X-ray imaging to study microscopic skeletal elements and determine the environmental and developmental drivers of biomineralisation in animals.