#thylacocephala

[brella-boi]

i am researching more prehistoric bugs for my pin campaign since all goals were met and everyone is hungry for more, and i found just the strangest candidate

take a load of THIS THING

peepers for days

[alphynix]

The enigmatic thylacocephalans were a group of bizarre little arthropods, found in marine deposits all over the world from the late Ordovician (~435 million years ago) to the late Cretaceous (~85 million years ago). They had shield-like bivalved carapaces, large compound eyes, three pairs of spiny grasping limbs, and multiple pairs of small paddle-like swimming limbs, but details of their internal anatomy are poorly known and their evolutionary relationships to other arthropods are still very uncertain.

Traditionally they've been classified as crustaceans, possibly as close relatives of remipedes or malacostracans – but they've also recently been proposed as instead being part of a much more ancient branch of arthropods, potentially related to stem-mandibulates like Acheronauta.

Falcatacaris bastelbergeri was a thylacocephalan living during the late Jurassic, about 150 million years ago, in what is now Germany. Around 2.5cm long (~1"), its carapace had tiny interlocking square "teeth" resembling a zipper along the hinge line between the two valves, a ridge along each side, and a long pointed knife-shaped spine at the front.

Like other thylacocephalans it was probably a swimming predator, likely nocturnal or hunting in murky conditions based on its enlarged eyes, and would have captured smaller aquatic prey using its raptorial limbs.

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NixIllustration.com | Tumblr | Patreon

References:

Braig, Florian, et al. "A new thylacocephalan crustacean from the Upper Jurassic lithographic limestones of southern Germany and the diversity of Thylacocephala." Palaeodiversity 12.1 (2019): 69-87. https://doi.org/10.18476/pale.v12.a6

Laville, Thomas, et al. "Morphology and anatomy of the Late Jurassic Mayrocaris bucculata (Eucrustacea?, Thylacocephala) with comments on the tagmosis of Thylacocephala." Journal of Systematic Palaeontology 19.4 (2021): 289-320. https://doi.org/10.1080/14772019.2021.1910584

Pulsipher, Mikaela A., et al. "Description of Acheronauta gen. nov., a possible mandibulate from the Silurian Waukesha Lagerstätte, Wisconsin, USA." Journal of Systematic Palaeontology 20.1 (2022): 1-24. https://doi.org/10.1080/14772019.2022.2109216

Wikipedia contributors. “Thylacocephala” Wikipedia, 07 Nov. 2024, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thylacocephala

[crab-justice]

[veloci-raptor]

Flocking Together #54

Thylacine

Dollocaris

Mesosaurus

Discokeryx

[he-who-needs-to-be-silenced]

Third Euramerica submission

Wizards, crushers, submarines and pancakes

[bethdehart]

Thylacocephala

looks like a sonic oc lmao. We decided in stream that they’re pink bc of the pink drink they have.

[ID: a sketch of an anthropomorphic thylacocephala. It is pink with large black eyes and 6 arms and two legs. All its limbs have spikes on them and its body is segmented like an arthropod. They’re holding a pink drink cup with a straw in it.]

[marikedrawinge]

[insects, insect-like at least] This is the first anthropomorphic Clausocaris lithographica ever drawn and probably the only anthropomorphic Thylacocephalan anyone has ever drawn as of February 28th 2023. 2023

[crab-justice]

Whats yours opinions on thylacocephala