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| Photo courtesy of http://palaeos.com |
More and more clues of Hurdia are accumulated over the years but the final clue was discovered when a sample turned up in storage cabinets at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. This specimen has been intact until researches in the 1970’s classified it as an arthropod and then as an unusual specimen of the famous monster predator Anomalocaris. Hurdia is related to this other beast, but one thing that was different from both is that a large three-part shell projects out from the front of the animal’s head. Researchers were astonished by this structure because it was unlike anything they had seen in arthropods. The shell structure in Hurdia did not seem to cover or protect the body as most do and it was empty.
No one knows what these predators might have ate because there is no direct evidence but they think that it ate whatever came around. If it was looked at in terms of the Cambrian marine world, it may have ate marine worms, trilobites, other arthropods, molluscs, or other predators. Hurida was covered in gills which my hint it was necessary to provide oxygen to a large swimming animal. Hurdia and Anomalocaris are early lineages that directed to arthropods because they had compound eyes and limbs with filaments used for breathing.
Blog Post Author: Christina Vilkhovoy, Section 124-22
Article Citation
LiveScience Staff. “Ancient Creature was a Minature Monster.” Live Science. 19 March 2009. Web. < http://www.livescience.com/3416-ancient-creature-miniature-monster.html>.
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