Yawunik
Name: Yawunik
(named after a creature in Ktunaxa legend).
Phonetic: Ya-wu-nik.
Named By: C�dric Aria, Jean-Bernard Caron
& Robert Gaines - 2015.
Classification: Arthropoda.
Species: Y. kootenayi
(type).
Diet: Carnivore.
Size: Main body about 15 centimetres long.
Known locations: Canada, British Columbia -
Marble Canyon.
Time period: Cambrian.
Fossil representation: Specimens preserved complete
on slab.
Yawunik
has been a very big insight into how modern arthropods may have
developed the features that they are known for. In modern (and
most prehistoric forms), different functions such as sense,
grasping, walking, etc. are usually divided to specific body
parts. In Yawunik however you can see body parts
adapted that are for
lack of a better term multipurpose.
Yawunik
looks a little bit like a fifteen centimetre long pill bug, but it is
the front appendages that the genus is most notable for. Each
appendage ended with the growth of three claws, but this wasn’t all.
From the ends of these claws, long wisp like antennae grew,
meaning that Yawunik could not only sense but also
trap prey with the
same body parts, abilities that are usually separated in other forms.
Aside
from the multipurpose claws, another thing that makes Yawunik
stand
out is that this creature had four eyes. These were underneath the
most forward part of the shell which may have acted as a hood for the
eyes and with this arrangement in mid Yawunik seems
to have had its
vision orientated forwards. Whether Yawunik
sifted through soft
sediment for buried prey, or if it lay in-between crevices to ambush
passing animals, we simply do not know.
Further reading
- A large new leanchoiliid from the Burgess Shale and the influence
of inapplicable states on stem arthropod phylogeny. -
Palaeontology. - C�dric Aria, Jean-Bernard Caron &
Robert Gaines - 2015.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Random favourites
 |
|
 |
 |