These conditions can keep the embryos intact for long enough for bacteria to mineralise the cells and permit their preservation.
Features preserved on Doushantuo embryos are compatible with metazoans (animals), but the absence of epithelialization is consistent only with a stem-metazoan affinity.
[5] Some fossil embryos are considered to belong to cnidarians and ecdysozoans, if they even fall into the metazoan crown group.
Cell division without enlargement appears to continue beyond what it would in embryos, and without other embryonic traits becoming apparent.
Such division is found in a wide range of eukaryotes, including some that are not truly multicellular, and this more conservative interpretation looks to be more parsimonious than embryonic claims.