Burgess Shale Centenary: Cambrian's fiercest predator defanged
One presentation that stirred things up a bit suggested that Anomalocaris wasn't the fierce predator it is usually portrayed as (see my news story here). This animal is almost always shown munching on a hard-shelled trilobite, but it seems that maybe it was incapable of such attacks. Opinion is still divided, but even Simon Conway Morris threw up a picture of a classic reproduction of Cambrian life during his talk, featuring an Anomalocaris gripping onto a trilobite, and quipped "so here we see an Anomalocaris putting a trilobite gently to bed...". This was met with many chuckles - not, I think, because the idea of a gentler Anomalocaris is laughable, but simply because people don't know quite how to respond to classic ideas about Cambrian life being overturned. If the 'gentler' image holds up, they'll have to redraw all the Cambrian life pictures.
Posted on behalf of Nicola Jones
