Scientists Discover Fossil of Anomalocaridid, a Large Ancient Sea Predator
Posted on May 25, 2011
Scientists have discovered a large fossil of an ancient sea creature known as an anomalocaridid. Anomalocaridids had long, spiny head limbs presumably used to snag prey, and a series of blade-like filaments in segments across its back, which scientists think might have functioned as gills. A team led by former Yale researcher Peter Van Roy (now at Ghent University in Belgium) and Derek Briggs, director of the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, discovered a giant fossilized anomalocaridid that measures one meter (over 3 feet) in length.
The creatures were already thought to be the largest animals of the Cambrian period, 540 to 500 million years ago. Researchers thought the creatures died out at the end of the Cambrian, but the new fossil suggests they lived another 30 million years after the Cambrian.
"The anomalocaridids are one of the most iconic groups of Cambrian animals," Briggs said. "These giant invertebrate predators and scavengers have come to symbolize the unfamiliar morphologies displayed by organisms that branched off early from lineages leading to modern marine animals, and then went extinct. Now we know that they died out much more recently than we thought."
Derek Briggs discusses the Anomalocaridid fossil discovery, along with a model of the anomalocaridid creature. Take a look:
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