the T. REX (hurdia victoria) of the cambrian seas

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Reconstruction of Hurdia victoria, a formidable predator from the Cambrian era. Fossils of the unique animal were discovered in the 505 million-year-old Burgess Shale, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in British Columbia. (Marianne Collins/Science/AAAS) :

http://www.cbc.ca/gfx/images/news/photos/2009/03/19/daley-4hr-wide.jpg

i am glad to report that this monster of the "cambrian seas" no longer poses a risk to unwary swimmers and fishermen .

remnants of this monster had been found about 100 years ago , but they were never re-constructed until recently .
scientists were rather surprised at the outcome of the re-constuction : they found a MONSTER !

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2009/03/19/cambrian-predator.html

also :

http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/605321

Quote:

A team of scientists from Canada, Britain and Sweden has pieced together fossils of what they believe was a giant predator that roamed the seas 500 million years ago " a century after the fossils were first discovered.

In a time when most creatures were no bigger than a fingernail, the 20-cm-long Hurdia victoria was a giant, earning its nickname as the Tyrannosaurus rex of the Cambrian era, researchers report in the Friday issue of journal Science.

The fossils, found in British Columbia's Burgess Shale, were originally thought to belong to several different species, with some parts attributed to jellyfish, sea cucumbers and arthropods, a groups that includes crustaceans, spiders and insects.

http://media.thestar.topscms.com/images/9c/c0/49704487427e8eb8e90c8a181fa7.jpeg

The ROM's (Royal Ontario Museum) Jean-Bernard Caron with photos of the Hurdia victoria fossil. (March 18, 2009)

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@hamburger,

It's an Anomalocaris with weird head-gear. Cool! Smile

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@hamburger,

This doesnt make it so unique as the reporter states. The interesting thing is that the Anomalocaris Genus ("Odd looking shrimp"), was found throughout the Canadian Rockies several valleys away from the Burgess Shale, These are all good index fossils that we use to locate and correlate oil shales feom the CAmbrian. The critters include Wiwaxia Anomalocaris and Sydneyia.

This guy was only 20 cm long so I would just cook em up on a barbie.

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@hamburger,

Im sorry but this bastards got a whale s tail, Im not buyin it. Even Sydneyia had a spread tail more like a lobster. Not like this little guy

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@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

This guy was only 20 cm long so I would just cook em up on a barbie.

Back at that time the Anomalocaris were cookin the Pikaia (us) up on the barbie.

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http://www.phleschbubble.com/album/movies/phlesch_cambrian_01.mov

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@rosborne979,

I wish we could get a genome to test that "family relationship" of Pikaia. The fact that it had a notochord is still a bit speculative no matter what Gould said. Several workers swear that its just another annelid. I dont know but lets not declare the foundations of our species yet.

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@farmerman,

i understand the the many fragments that were collected 100 years ago were not properly analysed and classified at that time .
since more fragments have now been collected and "put together" , it has now been declared a new species .
(of course , i don't really know anything about it . i was just listening to the science editor from the CBC who declared it a "significant" discovery . )

Quote:

Hurdia victoria was originally described in 1912 as a crustacean-like animal. Now, researchers reveal it to be just one part of a complex and remarkable new animal that has an important story to tell about the origin of the largest group of living animals, the arthropods.

The fossil fragments puzzled together come from the famous 505 million year old Burgess Shale, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in British Columbia, Canada. Uppsala researchers Allison Daley and Graham Budd at the Department of Earth Sciences, together with colleagues in Canada and Britain, describe the convoluted history and unique body construction of the newly-reconstructed Hurdia victoria, which would have been a formidable predator in its time.

for more on "victoria" :

http://www.scientificblogging.com/news_releases/hurdia_victoria_500_million_yearold_monster_predator_not_crustacean

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@hamburger,

yeh but 20 cm is hardly as big as a normal Philly cheese steak. The c-Cambrian was indeed a world of diminutive monsters.

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@farmerman,

i bet a "philly cheese steak" would finish me off more quickly than "victoria" !
hbg

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the T. REX (hurdia victoria) of the cambrian seas

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