"A 508-million-year-old sea predator with a 'jackknife' head" Topic

"Paleontologists at the University of Toronto (U of T) and the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) in Toronto have entirely revisited a tiny yet exceptionally fierce ancient sea creature called Habelia optata that has confounded scientists since it was first discovered more than a century ago.

The research by lead author Cédric Aria, recent graduate of the PhD program in the department of ecology & evolutionary biology in the Faculty of Arts & Science at U of T, and co-author Jean-Bernard Caron, senior curator of invertebrate palaeontology at the ROM and an associate professor in the departments of ecology & evolutionary biology and Earth sciences at U of T, is published today in BMC Evolutionary Biology.

Approximately 2 cm in length with a tail as long as the rest of its body, the long-extinct Habelia optata belongs to the group of invertebrate animals called arthropods, which also includes such familiar creatures as spiders, insects, lobsters and crabs. It lived during the middle Cambrian period approximately 508 million years ago and comes from the renowned Burgess Shale fossil deposit in British Columbia. Habelia optata was part of the "Cambrian explosion," a period of rapid evolutionary change when most major animal groups first emerged in the fossil record…"
Main page
link

Amicalement
Armand

Interesting critters:

YouTube link

Dan

(smile)

Amicalement
Armand

The problem is all the nasty critters that survived all the extinction events, and are still all around us.

Dan

Not sure that the tarantula is the best example there Cacique.

Relatively benign compared to a lot of the other survivors.

Yeah, I know. I couldn't find a Funnel Web or a Brown Recluse gif.

Dan