Apparently, some 530 million years ago (give or take) in the #Cambrian age, after about 2.5 billion years of rather plodding #evolution, bi-lateral symmetry appeared in animals (after some dabbling in tri-lateral and penta-lateral symmetry) and when brains showed up they were bi-lateral. #Vertebrate, but still #jawless, fishes were swimming after each other for lunch. #Eyes, which had already existed for a long while, started showing up in pairs, at the head end of the fishes. (1/3)
El Lochmanolenellus trapezoidalis fue un trilobite, encontrado en Nevada, Estados Unidos y en las montañas Cassiar, Canadá, que vivió en el Cámbrico (524-512 MdA). Se distingue por su ancho cefalón con prominentes espinas genales, pero ni de lejos las más grandes. Orm #trilobite #cambrico #cambrian
This will be a challenge to the fediverse connecting abilities: I need to make a costume of a #trilobite and of #Anomalocaris. I am looking for any help: someone has made one already and is happy to share the details, a costume designed willing to take up the challenge, a handwork hobbyist with a knack for sewing/cardboard magic who always want to launch their skills onto a bigger stage. We are making a #science show for kids as part of my #ERC project MindTheGap and we will be explaining #evolution using #fossils. #Cambrian fossils If you have any hints, contacts, old costumes, please get in touch. We are located in NL so we probably cannot commission costumes from overseas (too much risk of delay due to customs). #Outreach #ScienceCommunication #paleontology
Thinking about fossil marine invertebrates that Keilan-Jaworowska studied at the beginning of her career, made me think of this pattern made from my linocut animal prints with collaged washi papers from the Cambrian Period (from 538.8 million to 485.4 million years ago).
https://www.spoonflower.com/en/fabric/16990670-cambrian-sea-by-minouette
My 25 years of palaeoart chronology...
And it's FossilFriday! So here's a 520 million year old fossil of Timorbestia, a stem-group chaetognath (arrow worms). In 2020 I was commissioned to build a life-size model of this beauty.
You know what? Sod this #JurassicPark rubbish.
I want a #Cambrian Park, please. Bring back the #BurgessShale #hallucigenia !
Oldest-known evolutionary arms race https://phys.org/news/2025-01-fossil-reveals-oldest-evolutionary-arms.html
Adaptive responses in #Cambrian predator and prey highlight the arms race during the rise of #animals https://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(24)01647-6
"These 517-million-year-old predator-prey interactions occurred between a small, shelled #animal distantly related to #brachiopods and an unknown marine animal capable of piercing its shell... an increase in shell wall thickness coincides with an increase in the number of perforated shells"
Rare #fossil embryos show early #Ecdysozoa development in #Cambrian era https://phys.org/news/2024-12-rare-fossil-embryos-early-ecdysozoa.html paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0031018224006242
"it suggests a bag-shaped body is likely primitive for #ecdysozoans (a diverse group of #animals including #roundworms, velvet #worms, #insects, and #crabs), while a vermiform body, characteristic of crown-group ecdysozoans, evolved later."
@futurebird
interview with the person who showed some anomalocaridids were filter-feeders:
https://www.palaeocast.com/episode-31-anomalocaridids/
interview with the person who found the specimen that preserved the big goofy eyes:
https://www.palaeocast.com/episode-36-emu-bay-shale/
good grief, both those interviews are over 10 years old!
#arthopods
#anomalocaridids
#Cambrian
#Ordovician
#fossils
#Fossil of #Cambrian Long-Headed Chordate Unearthed in #Utah https://www.sci.news/paleontology/nuucichthys-rhynchocephalus-13130.html
A long-headed Cambrian soft-bodied vertebrate from the #AmericanGreatBasin region https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.240350
"#Nuucichthys rhynchocephalus swam in the Cambrian #oceans between 505 and 500 million years ago. It had a finless torpedo-shaped body that includes a number of markers characteristic of #vertebrates. It is one of only four species documenting the early evolutionary stage of vertebrate lineage."
@vbuendiar I am not academically trained, but I love hashtags and the more specific, the better. By field, and focus are great.
I like being hooked in by general hashtags like #science but then it's great when I can find people who are into #Cambrian #Fossils from the #BurgessShale and have theories on what #Hallucigenia would get up to. This is both fascinating and makes a great jumping off/in place and reveals other like minded folk to follow.
You get used to writing with #hashtags
My 25 years of palaeoart chronology...
Here's my 2019 painting of a new species of polychaete (bristle worm) from the early Cambrian Canglangpu formation (China), called Dannychaeta tucolus. This was commissioned for Chen et al 2020.
My 25 years of palaeoart chronology...
Draft 3 & 4 for my 2019 "Cambrian Epic" painting, featuring a variety of wonderful creatures from the Sirius Passet lagerstätte, Greenland. This was commissioned for Park et al 2024.
My 25 years of palaeoart chronology...
Draft 1 & 2 for my 2019 "Cambrian Epic" painting, featuring a variety of wonderful creatures from the Sirius Passet lagerstätte, Greenland. This was commissioned for Park et al 2024.
My 25 years of palaeoart chronology...
Into 2019 with "Cambrian Epic," featuring two Timorebestia (newly discovered at that time) and a variety of other wonderful creatures from the Sirius Passet lagerstätte. This was commissioned for Park et al 2024.