Scientists have identified an ancient predator with four eyes and a strange set of limbs they used uniquely.
According to Live Science, authors of a study published in the journal Paleontology detailed the Yawunik kootenayi, an arthropod that lived some 500 million years ago in the Cambrian Period. The arthropod's fossil was first discovered in 2012 in Marble Canyon in British Columbia's Kootenay National Park.
"This creature is expanding our perspective on the anatomy and predatory habits of the first arthropods, the group to which spiders and lobsters belong," study lead author Cédric Aria, an ecology and evolutionary biology PhD candidate at the University of Toronto, said in a press release. "It has the signature features of an arthropod with its external skeleton, segmented body and jointed appendages, but lacks certain advanced traits present in groups that survived until the present day. We say that it belongs to the 'stem' of arthropods."
Known as a leanchoiliid arthropod, Y. kootenayi comes from one of the planet's most extensive species. Fellow arthropods include scorpions, spiders, butterflies, ants, lobsters, shrimp and horseshoe crabs. Their sectional bodies and hard exoskeletons most easily identify them.
"Unlike insects or crustaceans, Yawunik did not possess additional appendages in the head that were specifically modified to process food," Aria said in the release. "Evolution resulted here in a combination of adaptations onto the frontal-most appendage of this creature, maybe because such modifications were easier to acquire."
Y. kootenayi used its limbs for hunting and trapping its prey, but its front ones seemed to have sensory properties that aided in the pursuit of its victims.
"We know that the larvae of certain crustaceans can use their antennae to both swim and gather food. But a large active predator such as a mantis shrimp has its sensory and grasping functions split up between appendages," Aria said. "Yawunik and its relatives tell us about the condition existing before such a division of tasks among parts of the organism took place."
