Why are Cambrian creatures such as Halchigenia shaped differently?
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' Hulchigenia ' in the form of a mysterious form that slender legs are lined like a centipede on the ventral side of the slender torso and thorns are lined on the back side, and there are five eyes on the tip of a flat body, There are many unusual forms of Cambrian creatures that lasted from about 541 million years ago to 485 million years ago, such as ' Opavinia ' with its mouth protruding. The science news site, Live Science, is approaching the mystery of why the creatures of today are almost invisible.
Why Do Cambrian Creatures Look So Weird?
https://www.livescience.com/65006-why-cambrian-creatures-look-weird.html
According to Xavier Ortega-Hernandes, an associate professor at Harvard University, this is 'the result of adaptation to the environment at that time.'
Prior to the Cambrian, living organisms, as living beings, later appeared small creatures that preyed on them. However, this small creature stayed on the bottom of the sea.
About 541 million years ago, small creatures, still like insects, acquired simple 'muscles' and gained the ability to dig a hole in the seabed, while at the same time oxygen was supplied to the seabed. As a result, new habitats, food and predators are created, and new organisms are rapidly increasing. Many of the arthropods born in it had teeth-like organs for biting on their legs. They fought to survive, and as a result, more and more creatures took on various and complex forms, and creatures with strange appearances were born. It was a creature like Halchigenia, Opavinia,
Halchigenia was found in 1911 in the Canadian Rockies fossil strata, the Burgess Shale . It is a very improbable figure that something like a thorn on one side of the elongated body and something like a tentacle on the other side is bothered by how paleontologists are right to restore did.
The figure of Halchigenia, conceived by the paleontologist Simon Conway Maurice in 1977, is thus a round head, walking on the sea floor with thorny feet and capturing food with the back tentacles It was an image of.
by Philcha
However, what was considered to be the 'back tentacle' in 1992 is actually found to be a 'ventral leg' with a pair. It was corrected that it was the following figure that the thorn was to protect the back.
by Ghedoghedo
In 2015, it was discovered that what was previously thought to be a 'head' was the body's content that came out of the anus when it was crushed by mud. It was discovered that the head was drawn in a long and thin manner.
Although not as much as Halchigenia, Opavinia has long been unaware of what creature it was, and at first it was even thought to be crustaceans.
The opavinia drawn by Nobu Tamura, who has drawn illustrations of various paleontological creatures, looks like this. It features five eyes on the head and a mouth extending from it. When paleontologist Harry Whittington restored this form in the 1970s, the society was surrounded by laughs. It is said that Whittington accepted the reaction as 'a compliment to the weirdness of Opavinia'.
by Nobu Tamura
In addition, many Cambrian creatures were not able to shift to the Ordovician , the next geological age, and became extinct. Some say, sponges, jellyfish, anemones, etc., have some parts that have the appearance of Cambrian ancestors.
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in Creature, Posted by logc_nt