context: Because of their soft, gelatinous bodies, ctenophores are extremely rare as fossils, and fossils that have been interpreted as ctenophores have been found only in lagerstätten, places where the environment was exceptionally suited to preservation of soft tissue. Until the mid-1990s only two specimens good enough for analysis were known, both members of the crown group, from the early Devonian (Emsian) period. Three additional putative species were then found in the Burgess Shale and other Canadian rocks of similar age, about 505 million years ago in the mid-Cambrian period. All three apparently lacked tentacles but had between 24 and 80 comb rows, far more than the 8 typical of living species. They also appear to have had internal organ-like structures unlike anything found in living ctenophores. One of the fossil species first reported in 1996 had a large mouth, apparently surrounded by a folded edge that may have been muscular. Evidence from China a year later suggests that such ctenophores were widespread in the Cambrian, but perhaps very different from modern species – for example one fossil's comb-rows were mounted on prominent vanes. The Ediacaran Eoandromeda could putatively represent a comb jelly.
question: How long ago was the Ediacaran period?