This document contains the plain language summaries for the study:Raja, N. B., Dunne, E. M., Matiwane, A., Khan, T. M., Nätscher, P. S., Ghilardi, A. M., and Chattopadhyay, D. (2021). Colonial history and global economics distort our understanding of deep-time biodiversity. EarthArxiv. https://doi.org/10.31223/X5802N