The Jiangchuan biota of the Ediacaran (Sinian) upper Dengying Formation in eastern Yunnan is another rich and diverse macrofauna preserved by carbonaceous compressions in South China. A large number of sausage- shaped macroscopic fossils of carbonaceous compressions were found in this biota, which are extremely similar in size and shape to Tawuia carbonaceous fossils that were widely distributed in Mesoproterozoic and Neoproterozoic strata prior to the Cryogenian Snowball Earth episodes. We report that these fossils have a maximum width of 4. 5 mm, a maximum length of 4cm, and a length—width ratio greater than 2. The surface appears to be smooth and unornamented. Dark peripheral rings can be observed on some fossil specimens with particularly carbonaceous margins. However, these fossils appear to be more morphologically variable than classic Tawuia, which are commonly characterized by rod- shaped, I- shaped, U- shaped and C- shaped morphologies; we additionally observe fossils with right- angled L- shaped, figure- 8- shaped, wide U- shaped, and annular O- shaped morphologies. Individual specimens are also characterized by bending carbon residue, marginal carbon thickening and transverse ridges are associated with protruding structures of different sizes. Although previous studies have interpreted Tawui a as the thallus of a planktonic alga, we find that the morphological variability we observe in these Tawuia- like fossils cannot be easily reconciled with such an interpretation. These fossils may, alternatively, be related to vermiform animals of macrosomic fossil groups predating the Cryogenian glacials in the lower Neoproterozoic of West Shandong and Huainan. The newly discovered fossil morphology suggests that the Tawuia- like carbonaceous compression fossils may represent an early polyphyletic affinity. The fossils with short to long banded thallus, short peduncles and suspected holdfast structures can be identified as benthic macroalgae. Most of the thalli are assumed to be sausage- shaped or long and saccular, including various life stages of pelagic planktonic organisms, which may belong to primitive unbranched multinucleate algae or early differentiated hollow sac- like multicellular algae. Some of the regularly deformed Tawuia- like fossils shown in this paper are more likely to be bilaterally symmetrical relatives of early animals. Benthic organisms living in offshore marine settings may have experienced taphonomic processes of deformation and burial distinct from those experienced by planktonic organisms or algae transported from more terrestrially proximal settings.