Page 34 - The Dinosaur Book and Other Wonders of the Prehistoric World (DK-Smithsonian)
P. 34
Built to survive
Marrella
The body was divided
into segments with long
Anomalocaris flaps on each side.
Marrella was a tiny,
shrimplike creature.
Anomalocaris This pear-shaped
sea creature had spiral
reached a length grooves around its shell.
of 6 ⁄2 ft (2 m)—the Helicoplacus
1
size of an adult
human.
These spiked claws
were used to grasp prey.
The earliest animals that lived in ancient Anomalocaris and Marrella. These hard
oceans had soft bodies, like modern parts supported their bodies and helped protect
jellyfish. But during the Cambrian Period, them from enemies. When the animals died,
from 542 million years ago, new types of their soft parts were eaten or rotted, but their
animals appeared. They had hard shells, spines, shells and skeletons were often preserved as
32 and tough external skeletons, such as those of fossils. The appearance of many fossils in
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