Items38The creator’s order
  1. 1OpabiniaOpabiniaOpabinia’s five eyes sat on top of its head. At the front it carried a flexible nozzle tipped with a claw, which may have passed food back toward the mouth underneath. A Burgess Shale specimen preserves the eyes and the nozzle together, so the combination comes from the fossil itself.0
  2. 2HallucigeniaHallucigeniaTwo rows of spikes made Hallucigenia hard to put back together. An early reconstruction stood the animal on the spikes. Better fossils showed that the delicate limbs on the opposite side, some with tiny claws, were the legs.0
  3. 3HelicoprionHelicoprionThe fossil that gives Helicoprion away is a spiral of teeth embedded in a single root. For decades, researchers disagreed about where it belonged. A fossil with preserved cartilage showed that the whorl sat in the lower jaw of this sharklike fish.0
  4. 4DeinocheirusDeinocheirusFor decades, Deinocheirus was known mainly by a pair of enormous arms. More complete fossils revealed a deep, broad snout and tall spines along its back. The bones changed the mental picture from a pair of oversized arms to a hulking dinosaur with a broad bill and a raised back.0
  5. 5DickinsoniaDickinsoniaDickinsonia looks like an oval leaf with ribs running along both sides. Its outline alone made it difficult to classify. Researchers found traces of cholesterol in a fossil and used that chemical evidence, alongside its shape, to make the case that it was an early animal.0
  6. 6AnomalocarisAnomalocarisAnomalocaris was difficult to piece together. Its spiny grasping appendages and its ring of mouth plates were initially described separately. Whole specimens showed a swimmer with paired appendages at the front and flaps running down both sides.0
  7. 7WiwaxiaWiwaxiaA complete Wiwaxia fossil shows overlapping plates across its back with taller spines rising above them. The early fossils were only loose pieces of armor. A whole specimen makes sense of those pieces and reveals the flattened underside of this slug-shaped animal.0
  8. 8CambrorasterCambrorasterThe broad head shield of Cambroraster curves outward like a horseshoe. Fossils also preserve comb-like appendages around its mouth. Its researchers suggest those spines could have sorted small prey from sediment near the seafloor.0
  9. 9DunkleosteusDunkleosteusDunkleosteus had sharp edges made from jaw plates rather than individual teeth. The plates fit together like blades. The fossil head armor is distinctive even when the rest of the fish is missing, which is one reason its length and outline have been harder to reconstruct.0
  10. 10TullimonstrumTullimonstrumThe Tully monster had eyes on the ends of a rigid crossbar and a grasping tip at the end of a long stalk. Those features are recognizable in the fossils, but researchers still disagree about where this soft-bodied swimmer belongs on the animal family tree.0