Burgess Shale Fossils

I ran across this site recently and found it pretty interesting about the Burgess Shale. Many of the creatures found in this find are indeed amazing. You might recognize the Trilobites and a few others. I knew about this find as a kid, but had forgotten about it. Nice to see now all the interesting things found there. I found a Trilobite fossel as a kid on the Alberta flatland, so finds like this are amazing.

Fossel Index

More than 1/2 BILLION years old, the fossils of the Burgess Shale fauna preserve for us an intriguing glimpse of early animal life on Earth. These fossils are named after a Cambrian rock formation (the Burgess Shale) that is located in the western Canadian Rockies.

Two that I noticed were the Hallucigenia and the Anomalocaris.

Hallucigenia


Hallucigenia

Anomalocaris

This fearsome-looking beast is the largest known Burgess Shale animal. Some related specimens found in China reach a length of six feet! The giant limbs in front, which resemble shrimp tails, were used to capture and hold its prey. A formidable mouth on the undersurface of the head had a squared ring of sharp teeth that could close in like nippers to crack the exoskeleton of arthropods or other prey. With those large eyes and a body half flanked with a series of swimming lobes, this must have been an active, formidable predator! Anomalocaris is one of the most widely distributed of the Burgess Shale animals. In addition to Canada and China, specimens have been unearthed in Cambrian deposits in Greenland and Utah.

Also, look at the world view in the Cambrian Period - 510 Million Years Ago. Do you believe this is an accurate depiction or not?

Interesting. For some reason the Anomalocaris IMO looks a lot like the ratfish posted on one of the forums on the ATS board. Could they be one in the same?

What an interesting and unusual creature this Anomalocaris is.. You can get a 3D look at it here:

www.nhm.ac.uk...

This animal almost looks alien.

I had never seen or heard of it before this thread.. I wonder how evolution got rid of this one?

Gazz

Anomalocaris, the origial TOP predator.
I remember watching a documentary, where they found JUST the mouthparts of this odd critter..they thought the mouthparts were some type of animal on their own.. Some type of shrimplike creature, I think..

THEN they found a more complete fossil... whoops...

Is there any current lineage that leads back to this animal, or was it a dead-end?