#odaraia

[onenicebugperday]

Saw this Misumena vatia who caught a fly!

Ohhh good for her! A large meal. Less good for the fly man, RIP.

[majingojira]

Hey, so super random. Like really random. But I came across your Burgess Shale post, about the Planet of Life documentary from 1995, and I asked an academic friend who researches that formation. The fossil is Odaraia, not sure why they called it new but maybe it looked different in the field because of the preservation. The “Burgess Shale Primer” from the ROM mentions collecting Odaraia in 1994&1995 (not sure it was collected the same year the film was published). So hopefully this helps clear up the mystery!

This is not random at all, but super welcome! Thank you for this, Anon!

Before, the best answer we got was an Anamalocarid, but it really shows how much things can be smooshed even in a laggerstaten.

(as if Wawaxia wasn't enough!)

[afieldguidetoprehistoriclife]

A FIELD GUIDE TO CAMBRIAN FAUNA is part of a series of zines about prehistoric life. A mix of illustration, speculation and science, this second volume contains 50+ pages as well as 20 full-color illustrations.

How you can support the project:

Purchase the 1st volume here! (limited supply)

Reblog/like/spread the word!

[leaping-laelaps]

Odaraia alata, (yet another) strange arthropod of the Burgess Shale.

Unlike many of the 'weird wonders' of the Burgess like Hallucigenia or Opabinia, Odaraia was quickly identified as an arthropod (although its precise position remains unclear) but what sets it apart is its completely unique functional morphology: in addition to a very unusual telson with three flukes (quite reminiscent of the tail of a plane), Odaraia had a bivalved carapace that almost completely enclosed its body (Briggs & Whittington, 1981), like a living burrito with many legs.

Since the legs were unable to reach out beyond the shield, Odaraia must have spent its life swimming (possibly on its back like a fairy shrimp, based on its center of gravity), using its legs to create currents to guide food particles into the shield space and towards the mouth; the tail flukes likely assisted in stabilizing and steering. The whole animal was about 15 cm long (Briggs & Whittington, 1981).

In the background are Pirania muricata sponges, contemporary to Odaraia and also found in the Burgess Shale (Walcott, 1924).

References and notes about the reconstruction:

The cephalic appendages of Odaraia are poorly known; this reconstruction is based on the interpretation of Briggs & Whittington (1981), which consists of a pair of denticulated, mandible-like structures and, anterior to it, two possible pairs of simple segmented appendages - but the latter are highly uncertain and should be taken with caution.

Briggs, D. E. G., & Whittington, H. B. (1981). The arthropod Odaraia alata Walcott, Middle Cambrian, Burgess Shale, British Columbia. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. B, Biological Sciences, 291(1056), 541–582. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.1981.0007

Budd, G. E. (2008). Head Structure in Upper Stem-Group Euarthropods. Palaeontology, 51(3), 561–573. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-4983.2008.00752.x

Charles D. Walcott. (1924). Middle Cambrian Spongiae. In Cambrian Geology and Paleontology (Vol. 67, pp. 261–364). Smithsonian Institution. https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/9442

[alphynix]

Odaraia alata from the Middle Cambrian (~505 mya) Burgess Shale of the Canadian Rockies. Originally considered to be a crustacean, more recently it's been reclassified as a stem-arthropod.

Growing up to 15cm in length (5.9"), it had a pair of large eyes on short stalks, and may have had two or three smaller median eyes in between. A tube-like carapace covered most of its body, and the tail had three flukes for stabilization while swimming.

It's also likely that Odaraia primarily swam around upside down, based on the hydrodynamics of its body shape -- similar to how modern horseshoe crabs get around.