Portal:Paleontology/Natural world articles/34

Schinderhannes bartelsi is an anomalocarid known from one specimen from the lower Devonian Hunsrück Slates. Its discovery was astonishing because previously, anomalocaridids were known only from exceptionally well-preserved fossil beds (Lagerstätten) from the Cambrian, 100 million years earlier. Anomalocaridids, such as Anomalocaris, were organisms thought to be distantly related to the arthropods. These creatures looked quite unlike any organism living today—they had segmentedexoskeletons, with lateral lobes used for swimming, five large compound eyes, often set on stalks, and most strikingly, a pair of large, claw-like great appendages that resembled headless shrimp. These appendages are thought to have passed food to the animal's mouth, which resembled a ring of pineapple.(see more...)