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Anomalocaris
Sign in to saveAnomalocaris (from Ancient Greek , meaning "unlike", and , meaning "shrimp", with the intended meaning "unlike other shrimp") is an extinct genus of radiodont, an order of early-diverging stem-group marine arthropods. It is best known from the type species A. canadensis, found in the Stephen Formation (particularly the Burgess Shale) of British Columbia, Canada. The other named species A. daleyae is known from the somewhat older Emu Bay Shale of Australia. Other unnamed Anomalocaris species are known from China and the United States.
In the Vinony graph
Within Vinony's link graph, Anomalocaris is referenced by 152 other articles, and connects out to arthropod, Trilobita and Ecdysozoa.
It sits within the topics Burgess Shale fossils, Cambrian animals of Oceania and Cambrian arthropods of Asia.
Its subject is documented across 38 Wikipedia language editions.
Wikidata facts
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- Anomalocaris Mt. Stephen.jpg
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Encyclopedic overview
7 sectionsContents
- Discovery and identification
- Description
- Paleobiology
- Paleoecology
- See also
- Footnotes
- External links
Anomalocaris (from Ancient Greek , meaning "unlike", and , meaning "shrimp", with the intended meaning "unlike other shrimp") is an extinct genus of radiodont, an order of early-diverging stem-group marine arthropods. It is best known from the type species A. canadensis, found in the Stephen Formation (particularly the Burgess Shale) of British Columbia, Canada. The other named species A. daleyae is known from the somewhat older Emu Bay Shale of Australia. Other unnamed Anomalocaris species are known from China and the United States.
Like other radiodonts, Anomalocaris had swimming flaps running along its body, large compound eyes, and a single pair of segmented, frontal appendages, which in Anomalocaris were used to grasp prey. Estimated to reach long excluding the frontal appendages and tail fan, Anomalocaris is one of the largest animals of the Cambrian, and thought to be one of the earliest examples of an apex predator, though others have been found in older Cambrian lagerstätten deposits.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Anomalocaris” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.