Vendian

A few mineralized animal fossils, including spongw spicules and probable worm tubes, are known from the Vendian period immediately preceding the Cambrian.

Continuation… 2008

Some of the odd fossils of the“Ediacara biota” from the Vendian may also have been animals in or near living phyla, although this remains a somewhat controversial topic.

Continuation… 2008

Note that the hyperlinks are a bit cautious about these fossils, but there has been a lot more work (and better fossils) since then (the links still call them Vendian, for goodness sakes).

Steve Steve and end of the Cambrian Explosion as we know it (part 1) - The Panda's Thumb 2006

So Good and I went and ate in silence and then indulged in an extra fine flagon of old Zu-Vendian to keep our spirits up, and presently one of our attendants came and told a story that gave us something to think about.

Allan Quatermain Henry Rider Haggard 1890

The Cambrian had been considered as the rock layer that had the first fossils of animals, but those fossils can also be found in the older Vendian geological column purports to document 543 million years of history for life and 4.5 billion years of history for the

CreationWiki - Recent changes [en] 2009

I discoursed with mine, a merry blue-eyed girl, upon Zu-Vendian art, and never saw that she was waiting for an opportunity to drop a specimen of the cockroach tribe down my back, whilst in the corner Sir Henry and his governess appeared, so far as I could judge, to be going through a lesson framed on the great educational principles laid down by Wackford Squeers Esq., though in a very modified or rather spiritualized form.

Allan Quatermain Henry Rider Haggard 1890

It’s perfectly true that we don’t know how to classify most of the Vendian/Ediacaran fauna.

Fun with Hominin Cranial Capacity Datasets (and Excel) - The Panda's Thumb 2006