Opabinia Regalis

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Crazy Creatures Opabinia regalis Opabinia was a very odd creature found in the Time: 500 Million Cambrian period about 500 million years ago. It was an arthropod, which means a creature Years ago with an exoskeleton. Period: Cambrian Opabinia was only 5cm long but was a ferocious predator. It lived in the sea and ate other small animals including very early fish Prawn with and lots of other arthropods. It was very well adapted to it's environment. a trunk! Your task 1: Draw Opabinia! It had: 5 mushroom shaped eyes a long trunk with sharp pincers at the end a round mouth underneath fifteen short fins on each side a tail with five longer fins Your task 2: Opabinia was well adapted to it's environment. This meant everything about it made it good at living in the sea. What kind of environment do you think it lived in? Think of a sea environment that would need: lots of eyes a long trunk a body for slow, careful swimming Creature Fact! Your task 3: Opabinia was a fierce predator but didn't have any jaws or There are millions of teeth! Jaws and teeth help us to chew arthropods around today hard foods. Without jaws, what kind of but none of them are food do you think Opabinia ate? related to Opabinia – it's so weird it is put in a group of animals all on it's own! Your task 4: Noone knows what Opabinia's large trunk was for! What other kinds of animals have trunks, and what do they use them for? Could Opabinia have used their trunks the same way? Your task 5: Opabinia is one of many famous fossils from a certain very famous place in the palaeontological world. Find out where and find one other fossil from there! Your task 6: Find out five other facts about Opabinia 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Research key words: Cambrian Burgess Shale Arthropod CRAZYOMETER! How weird do you think this creature was? Boring! Yeah Ok A bit weird Really weird! Woah! By Nobu Tamura (http://spinops.blogspot.ca/) - http://spinops.blogspot.ca/2017/02/opabinia-regalis.html, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=64027732 By Jstuby at English Wikipedia - Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons by FunkMonk using CommonsHelper., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6528199.

Copy Link

Recommended publications

A Passion for Palaeontology September 22, 2012-March 17, 2013
BACK COVER PAGE COVER PAGE Bearing Witness Inside the ROM Governors A dark chapter in ROM NEWSLETTER OF THE Cambodia’s history ROM GOVERNORS The Institute for Contemporary FALL/WINTER 2 012 Summer at the ROM has been a whirlwind of activity. Culture (ICC) presents Observance Exciting new initiatives such as Friday Night Live and our and Memorial: Photographs from family weekend programming have been extremely popular S-21, Cambodia, featuring over 100 and we have seen many new visitors and partners come photographs developed from original through our doors. Also hugely successful has been our negatives abandoned by the Khmer Special thanks to Susan Crocker and INSIDER groundbreaking exhibition Ultimate Dinosaurs: Giants from Rouge in January 1979, at the S-21 secret John Hunkin, Ron Graham, the Gondwana, which pioneers the use of Augmented Reality prison in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Honourable William C. Graham and and includes the largest dinosaur ever mounted in Canada. Curated by Photo Archive Group, and Cathy Graham, Deanna Horton, Dr. Carla Shapiro from the Munk School Richard W. Ivey, and Sarah and Tom This month, it is a great pleasure to welcome Robert Pierce of Global Affairs, University of Toronto, Milroy for their generous support of this as the new chairman of the Board of Governors. As a this exhibition calls attention to the exhibition. For information on how you long-time volunteer, Board member for more than 12 years, atrocities in Cambodia in the 1970s can support Observance and Memorial and supporter of the ROM, Rob has served in a leadership or to make a donation to the ICC, BIG and human rights issues.
[Show full text]
The Cambrian Explosion: a Big Bang in the Evolution of Animals
The Cambrian Explosion A Big Bang in the Evolution of Animals Very suddenly, and at about the same horizon the world over, life showed up in the rocks with a bang. For most of Earth’s early history, there simply was no fossil record. Only recently have we come to discover otherwise: Life is virtually as old as the planet itself, and even the most ancient sedimentary rocks have yielded fossilized remains of primitive forms of life. NILES ELDREDGE, LIFE PULSE, EPISODES FROM THE STORY OF THE FOSSIL RECORD The Cambrian Explosion: A Big Bang in the Evolution of Animals Our home planet coalesced into a sphere about four-and-a-half-billion years ago, acquired water and carbon about four billion years ago, and less than a billion years later, according to microscopic fossils, organic cells began to show up in that inert matter. Single-celled life had begun. Single cells dominated life on the planet for billions of years before multicellular animals appeared. Fossils from 635,000 million years ago reveal fats that today are only produced by sponges. These biomarkers may be the earliest evidence of multi-cellular animals. Soon after we can see the shadowy impressions of more complex fans and jellies and things with no names that show that animal life was in an experimental phase (called the Ediacran period). Then suddenly, in the relatively short span of about twenty million years (given the usual pace of geologic time), life exploded in a radiation of abundance and diversity that contained the body plans of almost all the animals we know today.
[Show full text]
Interpretive Programs in Yoho National Park
Interpretive Programs Yoho National Park July 1 - August 31, 2015 Guided Activities Evening Hikes Programs SUNDAY MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY FRIDAY SATURDAY Burgess Shale: Burgess Shale: Burgess Shale: Burgess Shale: Burgess Shale: Walcott Quarry Walcott Quarry Walcott Quarry Walcott Quarry Walcott Quarry Reservation Required Reservation Required Reservation Required Reservation Required Reservation Required 7 am 7 am 7 am 7 am 7 am Burgess Shale: Burgess Shale: Emerald Lake Activities with Burgess Shale: Mt. Stephen Mt. Stephen Guided Walk Interpreters Mt. Stephen Reservation Required Reservation Required Emerald Lake Bridge Emerald Lake Reservation Required 7 am 7 am 1-4 pm 1-4 pm 7 am Burgess Shale Learn to ESI: EcoSystem Rock Stars Geocache Investigator Kicking Horse Kicking Horse Kicking Horse Campground Theatre Campground Theatre Campground Theatre 7:30 pm 7:30 pm 7:30 pm Canada Day, July 1st: Watch for fun, hands-on activities at the Canada Day celebration in Yoho. For more information contact the Yoho Visitor Centre (250-343-6783). Parks Day, July 18th: Emerald Lake Guided Walk, See description for details, 1-4 pm. en français nt offert PLEASE NOTE: Events subject to change without notice. Participants require a valid park pass. All pro- Ces présentations sont en anglais seulement. Pour obtenir des renseignements en grams free unless otherwise noted. français sur les présentations, téléphonez au 250-343-6783. Égaleme Burgess Shale Evening Activities $ Interpretive Programs Guided Hikes Programs Yoho National Park Join a Parks Canada interpreter on a full- July 1 - August 31, 2015 Activities with Interpreters day hike to the Walcott Quarry, Mt. Stephen Kicking Horse Watch for interpreters at park hot-spots.
[Show full text]
The Secrets of Fossils Lesson by Tucker Hirsch
The Secrets of Fossils Lesson by Tucker Hirsch Video Titles: Introduction: A New view of the Evolution of Animals Cambrian Explosion Jenny Clack, Paleontologist: The First Vertebrate Walks on Land Des Collins, Paleontologist: The Burgess Shale Activity Subject: Assessing evolutionary links NEXT GENERATION SCIENCE STANDARDS and evidence from comparative analysis of the fossil MS-LS4-1 Analyze and interpret data for patterns record and modern day organisms. in the fossil record that document the existence, diversity, extinction, and change of life forms Grade Level: 6 – 8 grades throughout the history of life on Earth under the Introduction assumptions that natural laws operate today as In this lesson students make connections between in the past. [Clarification Statement: Emphasis fossils and modern day organisms. Using the is on finding patterns of changes in the level of information about the Cambrian Explosion, they complexity of anatomical structures in organisms explore theories about how and why organisms diversified. Students hypothesize what evidence and the chronological order of fossil appearance might be helpful to connect fossil organisms to in the rock layers.] [Assessment Boundary: modern organisms to show evolutionary connections. Assessment does not include the names of Students use three videos from shapeoflife.org. individual species or geological eras in the fossil record.] Assessments Written MS-LS4-2 Apply scientific ideas to construct an Time 100-120 minutes (2 class periods) explanation for the anatomical similarities and Group Size Varies; single student, student pairs, differences among modern organisms and between entire class modern and fossil organisms to infer evolutionary relationships. [Clarification Statement: Emphasis Materials and Preparation is on explanations of the evolutionary relationships • Access to the Internet to watch 4 Shape of Life videos among organisms in terms of similarity or • Video Worksheet differences of the gross appearance of anatomical • “Ancient-Modern” Activity.
[Show full text]
The Fossil Record of the Cambrian “Explosion”: Resolving the Tree of Life Critics As Posing Challenges to Evolution
Article The Fossil Record of the Cambrian “Explosion”: 1 Resolving the Tree of Life Keith B. Miller Keith B. Miller The Cambrian “explosion” has been the focus of extensive scientifi c study, discussion, and debate for decades. It has also received considerable attention by evolution critics as posing challenges to evolution. In the last number of years, fossil discoveries from around the world, and particularly in China, have enabled the reconstruction of many of the deep branches within the invertebrate animal tree of life. Fossils representing “sister groups” and “stem groups” for living phyla have been recognized within the latest Precambrian (Neoproterozoic) and Cambrian. Important transitional steps between living phyla and their common ancestors are preserved. These include the rise of mollusks from their common ancestor with the annelids, the evolution of arthropods from lobopods and priapulid worms, the likely evolution of brachiopods from tommotiids, and the rise of chordates and echinoderms from early deuterostomes. With continued new discoveries, the early evolutionary record of the animal phyla is becoming ever better resolved. The tree of life as a model for the diversifi cation of life over time remains robust, and strongly supported by the Neoproterozoic and Cambrian fossil record. he most fundamental claim of bio- (such as snails, crabs, or sea urchins) as it logical evolution is that all living does to the fi rst appearance and diversi- T organisms represent the outer tips fi cation of dinosaurs, birds, or mammals. of a diversifying, upward- branching tree This early diversifi cation of invertebrates of life. The “Tree of Life” is an extreme- apparently occurred around the time of ly powerful metaphor that captures the the Precambrian/Cambrian boundary over essence of evolution.
[Show full text]
A Personal View XVIII. Food Webs & Stability of Ecological Networks
Systems Biology Across Scales: A Personal View XVIII. Food Webs & Stability of Ecological Networks Sitabhra Sinha IMSc Chennai Alaskan food web Network of Ecological Interactions Simple food chains …are embedded in more… Complex food webs Arrows indicate direction of energy flow Early understanding of food webs “Not a single plant, not even a lichen, grows on this island; yet it is inhabited by several insects and spiders” Charles Darwin,1839 “In February, 1832, Darwin described the food web of St. Paul's Rocks near the equator in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, and remarked with surprise on the apparent absence of plants.” J E Cohen (1994) in Frontiers of Mathematical Biology (ed S A Levin) Abundance of each species maintained at a natural equilibrium: “Moebius in1877... recognized the importance of interspecific nutritive relationships while he was studying the organisms living on the oyster- beds of Schleswig-Holstein. To Moebius is due also the credit for noting that the effect of these interspecific relationships is to establish a state of equilibrium.” U d' Ancona (1954) The Struggle for Existence First known network of trophic relations First graphical representation of a food web as a network of groups of species linked by feeding relations Lorenzo Camerano (1880) 1856 – 1917 Network nodes classified into several taxa Plants Parasitic plants Insects Worms Spiders Crustaceans Fish Amphibians Reptiles Birds Mammals Web of interactions between Coleoptera, (beetle), their predators and predators of predators Summerhayes and Elton (1923) Food web of Bear Island Wikipedia Wikipedia Source: Neo Martinez Food web of Little Rock Lake, Wisconsin Antarctic Weddell Sea Food Web Source: Neo Martinez Ecology of Early Earth: Cambrian “Explosion” Annelid Canadia Arthropod Marrella Charles Walcott, Secretary of Hallucigenia the Smithsonian, discovered Cambrian-era fossils where soft body parts (e.g., eyes, muscles, gills, digestive system, etc.) was preserved in the Burgess shale in Velvet Worm Aysheaia the Canadian Rockies in 1909.
[Show full text]
Lobopodian Phylogeny Reanalysed
BRIEF COMMUNICATIONS ARISING Phylogenetic position of Diania challenged ARISING FROM J. Liu et al. Nature 470, 526–530 (2011) Liu et al.1 describe a new and remarkable fossil, Diania cactiformis. absent. For example, character 6 (position of frontal appendage) can This animal apparently combined the soft trunk of lobopodians (a only be coded in taxa that possess a frontal appendage (character 5) in group including the extant velvet worms in addition to many the first instance (such that a ‘‘0’’ for character 5 necessitates a ‘‘-’’ for Palaeozoic genera) with the jointed limbs that typify arthropods. character 6). In morphological analyses such as this, inapplicable They go on to promote Diania as the immediate sister group to the states are usually assumed to have no bearing on the analysis, being arthropods, and conjecture that sclerotized and jointed limbs may reconstructed passively in the light of known states. In analyses of therefore have evolved before articulated trunk tergites in the imme- nucleotide data, by contrast, gaps may alternatively be construed as a diate arthropod stem. The data published by Liu et al.1 do not un- fifth and novel state, because shared deletions from some ancestral ambiguously support these conclusions; rather, we believe that Diania sequence may actually be informative. If this assumption is made with probably belongs within an unresolved clade or paraphyletic grade of morphological data, however, all the logically uncodable states in a lobopodians. character are initially assumed to be homologous, and a legitimate Without taking issue with the interpretation of Diania offered by basis for recognizing clades.
[Show full text]
Banff. Jasper Kootenay. Yoho
Environment Environnement Canada Canada INTRODUCTION through the parks as well as the two railway routes. Banff and Canadian Parks Service canadien Jasper townsites developed in the early days to service the Service des pares The four Rocky Mountain national parks of Banff, Jasper, railway and to provide essential services to many park visitors. Kootenay and Yoho share boundaries, scenery, geology, plant Some mineral and forest exploitation was allowed in the and animal life, human history and importance to the world. parks until about the 1930s and until the 1960s in Yoho. Since Banff. Jasper These four parks were declared a World Heritage Site in then, the parks have been virtually free of resource extraction 1985 by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural and industry. Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage sites and monuments Kootenay. Yoho are considered to be of such exceptional interest and of such universal value that protecting them is a concern of all National Parks mankind. GEOLOGY The four Rocky Mountain parks were chosen for this Geological formations in the four mountain national parks Alberta/British Columbia honor because they include all four geological zones of the are composed largely of shale, dolomite, sandstone, limestone Rocky Mountains in an outstanding setting of exceptional and slate spanning time periods from the Precambrian to the beauty. These characteristics, exemplified by the Burgess Shale Cretaceous. Forces have resulted in faulting, folding and up fossils, the Columbia Icefield and the Maligne Valley, give the lifting of these rock layers to produce mountain ranges which parks world value. form the continental spine. The Canadian Rocky Mountains consist of the Western Ranges, the Main Ranges, the Front Ranges and the Foothills, Ca "odiat, all of which are represented in the four parks.
[Show full text]
Copyrighted Material
INDEX Alley Cat Rentals Artina’s (Victoria), 127 AAA Horse & Carriage Ltd. (Vancouver), 87 Artisans Courtyard (Vancouver), 82 Alliance for Arts and Culture (Courtenay), 198 Abandoned Rails Trail, 320 (Vancouver), 96 Artisan’s Studio (Nanaimo), Aberdeen Hills Golf Links Allura Direct (Whistler), 237 169 (Kamloops), 287 Alpha Dive Services (Powell Art of Man Gallery (Victoria), Abkhazi Garden (Victoria), River), 226 126 119 Alpine Rafting (Golden), 323 The Arts Club Backstage Access-Able Travel Source, 42 Alta Lake, 231 Lounge (Vancouver), 100 Accessible Journeys, 42 American Airlines, 36 Arts Club Theatre Company Active Pass (between Galiano American Automobile Asso- (Vancouver), 97 from Mayne islands), 145 ciation (AAA), 421 Asulkan Valley Trail, 320 Adam’s Fishing Charters American Express Athabasca, Mount, 399 (Victoria), 122 Calgary, 340 Athabasca Falls, 400 Adams River Salmon Run, Edmonton, 359 Athabasca Glacier, 400 286 American Foundation for the Atlantic Trap and Gill Adele Campbell Gallery Blind (AFB), 42 (Vancouver), 99 (Whistler), 236 Anahim Lake, 280 Au Bar (Vancouver), 101 Admiral House Boats Ancient Cedars area of Cougar Aurora (Banff), 396 (Sicamous), 288 Mountain, 235 Avello Spa (Whistler), 237 Adventure Zone (Blackcomb), Ancient Cedars Spa (Tofino), 236 189 Afterglow (Vancouver), 100 Anglican Church abine Mountains Recre- Agate Beach Campground, B Alert Bay, 218 ation Area, 265 258 Barkerville, 284 Backpacking, 376 Ah-Wa-Qwa-Dzas (Quadra A-1 Last Minute Golf Hot Line Backroom Vodka Bar Island), 210 (Vancouver), 88 (Edmonton),
[Show full text]
Top Ten Geological Wonders of Banff, Yoho, and Jasper National Parks Dale Leckie, Ph.D., P.Geol. Brokenpoplars.Ca
Top Ten Geological Wonders of Banff, Yoho, and Jasper National Parks Dale Leckie, Ph.D., P.Geol. brokenpoplars.ca Dale Leckie is the award-winning author of the #1 bestselling Rocks, Ridges, and Rivers: Geological Wonders of Banff, Yoho, and Jasper National Parks. ISBN Number 978-0- 9959082-0-8, 216 pages. Available at bookstores. Rocks, Ridges, and Rivers: Geological Wonders of Banff, Yoho, and Jasper National Parks 1. Canyons, caves, and lakes of the Maligne River, Jasper National Park Dale Leckie, Ph.D., P.Geol. A spectacular spot in the Jasper Medicine Lake is dry most of the time, area is the canyons, caves, and lakes of because most of the lake drains away the Maligne River system. The Maligne through its underground plumbing River enters the Athabasca River valley as system. a 90 metre high hanging valley, flowing over 365 million year old limestones. At Maligne Canyon, multiple waterfalls, potholes, and outlets of underground springs are preserved from what may well be an old and exhumed cave system. The hike along Maligne Canyon, with the waterfalls, deep chasms and gushing springs is breathtaking. Medicine Lake, Jasper National Park, drains through caves at its base. Farther upstream, the spectacular and unique cave drainage system at the Springs entering Maligne River, Jasper National bottom of Medicine Lake is one of several Park. Spring water flows through a cave system reasons that the United Nations created draining Medicine Lake 16 km away. the UNESCO Canadian Rocky Mountain The water from Medicine Lake drains Parks World Heritage Site. Medicine Lake through an underground cave system rises and falls as much as 19 meters every downstream for 16 kilometres to emerge year due to snowmelt and rainfall raising as a series of springs at the lower end of water levels.
[Show full text]
The Early History of the Metazoa—A Paleontologist's Viewpoint
ISSN 20790864, Biology Bulletin Reviews, 2015, Vol. 5, No. 5, pp. 415–461. © Pleiades Publishing, Ltd., 2015. Original Russian Text © A.Yu. Zhuravlev, 2014, published in Zhurnal Obshchei Biologii, 2014, Vol. 75, No. 6, pp. 411–465. The Early History of the Metazoa—a Paleontologist’s Viewpoint A. Yu. Zhuravlev Geological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, per. Pyzhevsky 7, Moscow, 7119017 Russia email: [email protected] Received January 21, 2014 Abstract—Successful molecular biology, which led to the revision of fundamental views on the relationships and evolutionary pathways of major groups (“phyla”) of multicellular animals, has been much more appre ciated by paleontologists than by zoologists. This is not surprising, because it is the fossil record that provides evidence for the hypotheses of molecular biology. The fossil record suggests that the different “phyla” now united in the Ecdysozoa, which comprises arthropods, onychophorans, tardigrades, priapulids, and nemato morphs, include a number of transitional forms that became extinct in the early Palaeozoic. The morphology of these organisms agrees entirely with that of the hypothetical ancestral forms reconstructed based on onto genetic studies. No intermediates, even tentative ones, between arthropods and annelids are found in the fos sil record. The study of the earliest Deuterostomia, the only branch of the Bilateria agreed on by all biological disciplines, gives insight into their early evolutionary history, suggesting the existence of motile bilaterally symmetrical forms at the dawn of chordates, hemichordates, and echinoderms. Interpretation of the early history of the Lophotrochozoa is even more difficult because, in contrast to other bilaterians, their oldest fos sils are preserved only as mineralized skeletons.
[Show full text]
Upper' Stem-Group Euarthropoda, With
Biol. Rev. (2014), pp. 000–000. 1 doi: 10.1111/brv.12168 Making sense of ‘lower’ and ‘upper’ stem-group Euarthropoda, with comments on the strict use of the name Arthropoda von Siebold, 1848 Javier Ortega-Hernández∗ Department of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge, Downing Site, Cambridge, CB2 3EQ, U.K. ABSTRACT The ever-increasing number of studies that address the origin and evolution of Euarthropoda – whose extant representatives include chelicerates, myriapods, crustaceans and hexapods – are gradually reaching a consensus with regard to the overall phylogenetic relationships of some of the earliest representatives of this phylum. The stem-lineage of Euarthropoda includes numerous forms that reflect the major morphological transition from a lobopodian-type to a completely arthrodized body organization. Several methods of classification that aim to reflect such a complex evolutionary history have been proposed as aconsequence of this taxonomic diversity. Unfortunately, this has also led to a saturation of nomenclatural schemes, often in conflict with each other, some of which are incompatible with cladistic-based methodologies. Here,I review the convoluted terminology associated with the classification of stem-group Euarthropoda, and propose a synapomorphy-based distinction that allows ‘lower stem-Euarthropoda’ (e.g. lobopodians, radiodontans) to be separated from ‘upper stem-Euarthropoda’ (e.g. fuxianhuiids, Cambrian bivalved forms) in terms of the structural organization of the head region and other aspects of overall body architecture.
[Show full text]