Ancient, Predatory “Lobster” is an Ancestor to All Modern Arthropods

More than 250 million year before the first dinosaur , the most fearsome killers on Earth may have been lobsters . Yawunik kootenayi , a vulgar ancestor to spider , shrimp and butterflies , was a predatory “ lobster - like ” creature that predominate the sea half a billion years ago .

As report this week in the journalPaleontology , fossils of Yawunik were recently unearthed from Marble Canyon , part of the renownedBurgess Shalerock formation of British Columbia . This massive fossil bed holds specimens of many sea beast that lived during theCambrian menstruation , the geologic era that saw a speedy diversification of nautical sprightliness forms .

This finicky beast was named after a mythical marine monster that play a primal role in the creation story of theKtunaxapeople . The name seems befitting because , according to study co - author Jean - Bernard Carbon , the lobster Yawunik was probably one of the most authoritative predators of its time . “ Yawunik is the most abundant of the large novel mintage of the Marble Canyon website , and so , as a piranha , it held a primal emplacement in the intellectual nourishment web and had an significant impact on this past ecosystem , ” Caron said in astatement .

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A holotype of Yawunik kootenayi . figure of speech : Jean - Bernard Caron / Royal Ontario Museum

Yawunik is an crucial paleontological discovery , one that sheds light on the other evolution of signature arthropod anatomical features , include body segments and antennae . According to study author Cedric Aria :

“ This animal is expanding our perspective on the anatomy and predatory riding habit of the first arthropods , the chemical group to which spiders and lobsters go . It has the signature features of an arthropod with its extraneous skeleton , segment body and jointed outgrowth , but lacks sure advanced traits present in groups that make it until the present day . We say that it belongs to the ‘ stem ’ of arthropod . ”

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The ancient piranha ’s most interesting adaptation may be a serial of multi - purpose head-on appendages . Long , party whip - alike antenna were likely used to sense its environment , while the antenna ’ toothy claw help oneself Yawunik ensnare its quarry . Fossil evidence advise the Yawunik could whip its claws backward and forwards , fan them out during an approach or retracting them under its body while it swam .

It may have only been a few inch long , but do n’t sizing arse around you . To most other marine creatures alive during its clock time , Yawunik would have been the stuff of nightmares .

Top simulacrum via Lars Field / Phlesch Bubble

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