Opabinia

Opabinia is an extinct marine animal from the Cambrian period, recognized by five eyes and a long, flexible proboscis ending in a claw-like grasping structure.

Cambrian: The first period of the Paleozoic Era, spanning about 541 to 485 million years ago. Opabinia lived during this period, when animal diversity expanded rapidly.
Proboscis: An elongated, flexible projection from an animal’s head, used for feeding or sensing. Opabinia’s unusual front appendage ended in a claw-like structure.
Charles Doolittle Walcott: An American geologist and paleontologist who collected and described many fossils from the Burgess Shale. Walcott named Opabinia in 1912 after collecting its fossil material.
Wonderful Life: A 1989 book by Stephen Jay Gould about the Burgess Shale and the history of evolutionary interpretation. Gould used Opabinia as an emblem of the Cambrian fauna’s unfamiliar forms.
Burgess Shale: A fossil deposit in British Columbia famous for exceptionally preserved Cambrian organisms. Its fossils provide the principal evidence for Opabinia’s anatomy.
Compound eye: An eye built from many small visual units, each sampling part of the surrounding scene. Opabinia’s five eyes were prominent sensory structures, though their detailed function remains uncertain.
Harry B. Whittington: A British paleontologist known for detailed studies of Cambrian fossils from the Burgess Shale. His anatomical revision helped establish Opabinia as a distinct and unusual animal.
Cambrian explosion: A geologically rapid diversification of animal life beginning around 541 million years ago. Opabinia is among the fossils that document the variety of Cambrian animal body plans.
Arthropod: An invertebrate animal with a segmented body, jointed appendages, and an external skeleton. Opabinia’s classification has long been discussed in relation to early arthropods.
Fossilization: The processes by which remains or traces of organisms become preserved in geological materials. Exceptional preservation makes Opabinia’s soft body and appendages visible in rock.

Linked from 6 pages