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(#1) Anomalocaris Was A Terrifying Apex Predator
The Anomalocaris was a giant for its time. Reaching lengths of over three feet, this mesmerizing maritime creature resembled a humongous shrimp. Most of its body was made of its head alone. Its bone crushing" teeth" were comprised of serrated prongs so long the creature was unable to completely close its own mouth.
With arms covered in spikes and eyes sporting 16,000 individual lenses, the Anomalocaris is believed to have been the most vicious predator in the sea. Some scientists claim that it fed on trilobites, leaving W-shaped indentations in their hard-shelled bodies that would last in the fossil record for hundreds of millions of years.
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(#3) Opabina Had Five Eyes And A Backwards Head
The now extinct Opabina was a curious creature. Sporting five gaping eyes and a backwards head, this pre-Cambrian animal is believed to have waited for its food on the ocean floor. Since its mouth was positioned beneath its head, it had to rely on its proboscis, a trunk-like snout, in order to eat. Its jointed appendages and the singular claw extending out from its head made the Opabina one bloodcurdling sight to behold.
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(#2) Hallucigenia Had Teeth Extending Down Its Throat
Hallucigenia was a Cambrian worm with an elongated spiky body, legs, and needle-sized teeth that protruded past the jaw line and went all the way down its throat. Its fossil sports a devilish grin that helped scientist to identify its head from its tail. Research suggests that this baffling creature sucked food up into its toothy, o-shaped mouth like a vacuum cleaner. Despite its unusual appearance, it shares ties with modern-day spiders and cycloneuralia worms.
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(#9) Cloudinidae Are A Mystery
The remains of the odd-looking creatures called Cloudinidae resemble a set of funnels stacked on top of on another. These pre-Cambrian organisms were plentiful across the global landscape, yet little is known about them. Despite the many mysteries surrounding them, Cloudinidae are still useful to the scientific community: they're the first shelly fossils with mineralized skeletons.
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(#8) Pikaia Gracilens Is The Oldest Known Vertebrate
What could be scarier than gazing into the mirror of time and seeing a snakelike version of man? That’s exactly what Pikaia gracilens is. This flat, spiraling sea creature was previously mistaken for a worm, but it's actually the earliest vertebrate found in history. That makes it an ancestor of humans and other vertebrates.
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(#10) Wiwaxia Was A Spiky Animal That Looked Like A Plant
Modern oceans are filled with animals of all shapes, colors, and textures. That idea had to start somewhere - and maybe it did with Wiwaxia, a prime example of an unusual pre-Cambrian explosion creature. This clever organism was disguised to look like a plant and rested on the ocean’s floor. When in danger, scientists theorize that Wiwaxia could stab would-be predators with its spikes.
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In the long history of evolution on Earth, countless prehistoric creatures have appeared in large numbers, but they disappeared in the Cambrian Period. But this does not mean that no creature can survive for hundreds of millions of years or even longer. It is about 530 million years since the Cambrian Period, at that time, the crust moved little, and the climate was warm and stable, many lives were born and became the ancestors of most animal species.
Here you can find 11 horrifying prehistoric creatures that exist in Cambrian Period about 500 million years ago. Before the Cambrian, there were few species on the earth, except for some algae fossils produced in the sea. But in the Cambrian, the number of animals in the sea suddenly increased exponentially.
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