Anomalocaris, the first apex predator
A metre-long swimming hunter with grasping appendages sits at the top of the first modern food web.
- When
- Known to
- ± 5 million years
- Era
- Cambrian, Paleozoic
Anomalocaris and its radiodont relatives are the largest animals of their time, propelled by rows of flexible flaps and equipped with a pair of spiny grasping appendages and large stalked eyes. Biomechanical modelling indicates the appendages were built for soft prey and rapid strikes rather than cracking trilobites. Whatever it ate, it represents something new: an animal whose entire living is made by hunting other animals.