Giant prehistoric shrimp had the weirdest mouth of the Cambrian period

500 million years ago , the metre - long Anomalocaris roamed the Cambrian seas . Researchers once think that Anomalocaris crush trilobites with their tooth , but recent fossil analytic thinking suggest something a plenty stranger .

When paleontologist James Hagadorn of the Denver Museum of Nature & Science noticed that Anomalocaris remains lacked fossilized digestive corpse or feces , his team began investigating how the Anomalocaris ’ jaws go . Hagadorn ’s team analyse 400 Anomalocaris specimens — not only did these fossilized mouths deficiency wear and tear , they also suggest that Anomalocaris could scarce crack blast prey . From theGeological Society of America :

“ It was supposed to drift around the Cambrian sea gobbling up trilobites and everything else , ” aver Hagadorn . But the pineapple - like curlicue of sassing parts and the associated hair - similar outgrowth of Anomalocaris all appear to have been waxy , in the fossil remains , he say . They are not mineralized like the exoskeletons of the trilobites they were purportedly eating .

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His suspicions inspire Hagadorn to develop a 3 - D , finite element analysis exemplar of the Anomalocaris oral fissure . This allow for testing just how the back talk worked and how much forcefulness it could create – in other words , how strong a bite it had . The model turn up some surprisal .

“ It could n’t even close its oral cavity , ” said Hagadorn . And there was no practical style these backtalk parts could create the effect needed to break out loose a modern lobster shell nor a shrimp racing shell , which were used as analogues for a trilobite shell in the poser .

It ’s ill-defined how Anomalocaris fed , but researcher now suspect that the creature either toil up its food or regurgitated it . In any case , this nightmare of the primeval oceans has been knock down a peg .

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