Odaraia

Odaraia
Odaraia alata
Temporal range: Middle Cambrian
Odaraia alata reconstruction
Odoraia alata fossil
Scientific classification e
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Subphylum: Crustacea
Class: Malacostraca (?)
Order: Binomial name
Odaraia alata
Walcott 1912

Odaraia is a genus of crustacean arthropod from the Middle Cambrian. Its fossils, which reach 15cm in length,[1] have been found in the Burgess Shale in British Columbia, Canada. 217 specimens of Odaraia are known from the Greater Phyllopod bed, where they comprise 0.41% of the community.[2]

It bore a large pair of eyes at the front of its body,[1] and may have had two smaller eyes in between.[3] It had a tubular body with at least 45 pairs of biramous limbs, and its tail had three fins - two horizontal, one vertical - which were used to stabilise the animal as it swam on its back.[1]

Odaria probably captured small swimming animals in its shell.

Further reading

  • Conway Morris, S. (1997). The Crucible of Creation: the Burgess Shale and the rise of animals. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0–19–286202–2. 
  • The Cambrian Fossils of Chengjiang, China: The Flowering of Early Animal Life by Xian-Guang Hou, Richard J. Aldridge, Jan Bergstrom, and David J. Siveter

External links

References

  1. ^ a b c Briggs, D. E. G. (1981), "The Arthropod Odaraia alata Walcott, Middle Cambrian, Burgess Shale, British Columbia", Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences 291 (1056): 541–582, Bibcode 1981RSPTB.291..541B, doi:10.1098/rstb.1981.0007 
  2. ^ Caron, J. -B.; Jackson, D. A. (October 2006). "Taphonomy of the Greater Phyllopod Bed community, Burgess Shale". PALAIOS 21 (5): 451–465. doi:10.2110/palo.2003.P05-070R.  edit
  3. ^ Budd, G. E. (2008), "HEAD STRUCTURE IN UPPER STEM-GROUP EUARTHROPODS", Palaeontology (Blackwell Synergy) 51 (3): 561, doi:10.1111/j.1475-4983.2008.00752.x, http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1475-4983.2008.00752.x 
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