Look! There are a group of prehistoric monsters "sealed" in the rocks!

The fantastic creatures that are difficult to distinguish between top and bottom, front and back, the ultimate stitching of shrimp, jellyfish and sea cucumbers, and the five-eyed aliens. These creatures seem to be from outer space or fantasy stories, but they really existed on Earth and were part of the evolution of life. Now, they are sealed in the rocks.

Some of these little monsters have unique appearances that are very eye-catching, such as the fantasy creature mentioned above, the Hallucigenia, which is difficult to distinguish from top to bottom and front to back.

Restoration of the Hallucigenia

Just by listening to the name, you can tell that it looks very strange. When it was first discovered, paleontologists could not tell which was the head and which was the tail, which was the dorsal spine and which was the leg. It was a nightmare for paleontologists to figure out what they looked like. There is even a hypothesis that it is not a creature itself, but an appendage of some large creature that has not yet been discovered. After all, the hallucinogen is often discovered with other creatures, and this is not without precedent. For example, the Anomalocaris was also found in the Chengjiang Fauna in Yunnan.

Anomalocaris fossil

The first Anomalocaris fossils discovered were only the appendages in front of the mouth of the Anomalocaris, which were thought to be some strange shrimp fossils. This is the origin of the name "Anomalocaris". Later, the mouth fossils of the Anomalocaris were discovered, which were thought to be some jellyfish fossils. Later, someone discovered the fossils of the body of the Anomalocaris, thinking it was a sea cucumber. It was not until all the body parts of the Anomalocaris were discovered that people realized that the so-called shrimp, jellyfish and sea cucumber were actually the same creature. This ultimate sutured monster belongs to the lobopod, which was the top predator at the time. Its disc-like mouthparts can be opened completely to bite the prey in all directions and send it into the body with ring-shaped teeth. When the front row of teeth opens, the three rows of teeth extending from the esophagus will grab the prey again. This feature of being armed to the teeth is not possessed by any arthropod that is close to the lobopod today.

Reconstruction of the Anomalocaris

Opabinia

Like the Anomalocaris, the Opabinia sea scorpion looks similar to an arthropod, but is not an arthropod. This creature is also very strange, with a long mouth like an elephant's trunk extending from its head, and a "claw" on the front of the mouth that can grasp. A closer look will reveal that this guy actually has five eyes. The strange appearance has given scientists a headache to classify them. For example, Wilkart mistakenly believed that they belonged to the subphylum Crustacea. Of course, they are actually not related.

Restoration of the Opabinia sea scorpion

Today, these strange creatures have long been extinct, but perhaps we should call them "pioneers" because during the Cambrian explosion of life, the basic body structure of almost all living organisms had already appeared. It can be said that it was because of their "experimental" exploration of the template of life that a few lucky ones withstood the mass extinction of life, maintained the basic structural pattern, and moved towards modern life forms.

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