Charnia

Charnia is the genus name given to a frond-like Ediacaran lifeform with segmented ridges branching alternately to the right and left from a zig-zag medial suture. The genus Charnia was named after Charnwood Forest in Leicestershire, England, where the first fossilised specimen was found.

The living organism was a type of fractal life form that grew on the sea floor and is believed to have fed on nutrients in the water. Despite Charnia's fern-like appearance, it is not a plant or alga because the nature of the fossilbeds where specimens have been found demonstrate that it originally lived in deep water, well below the photic zone where photosynthesis can occur.

Diversity
Several Charnia species were described but only the type species C. masoni is considered valid. Some specimens of C. masoni were described as members of genus Rangea or a separate genus Glaessnerina:
 * Rangea grandis Glaessner et Wade, 1966[1] = Glaessnerina grandis[2]
 * Rangea sibirica Sokolov, 1972 = Glaessnerina sibirica

Two other described Charnia species have been transferred to two separate genera
 * Charnia wardi Narbonne et Gehling, 2003[3] transferred to the genus Trepassia Narbonne et al., 2009[4]
 * Charnia antecedens Laflamme et al., 2007[5][6] transferred to the genus Vinlandia Brasier, Antcliffe et Liu, 2012[7]

A number of Ediacaran form taxa are thought to represent Charnia (or Charniodiscus) at varying levels of decay; these include the Ivesheadiomorphs Ivesheadia, Blackbrookia, Pseudovendia and Shepshedia.

Distribution
Charnia masoni was first described from Charnwood Forest in England and subsequently was found in Ediacara Hills in Australia,[1][9] Siberia and White Sea area in Russia[10][11] and Precambrian deposites in Newfoundland, Canada.