"A new study published in the journal Proceedings B revealed that this 20-centimetre-long arthropod was not only a great swimmer with its 30 pairs of sea legs — which the authors discovered were quite complicated structures — but it did indeed have mandibles.
This puts Odaraia into a group called mandibulates, which are related to some animals and insects we see today, including crabs, centipedes, ants and mosquitoes. And it is one of the earliest of its kind.
It is these arthropods that make up more than 80 per cent of the animals we have today.
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"One of the most surprising things was that each leg has spines — very, very tiny spines. And it's subdivided into, like, 20 different parts," Izquierdo López explained. "So imagine every leg is subdivided into 20 different small parts. And each of these small parts has four big spines and then has a lot of smaller spines. So if you combine one leg in total, you will have around 80 spines per leg."
It's believed that these legs created a sort of net capable of capturing the small particles or small creatures that it happened upon.
And when it comes to how Odaraia consumed its catch, Izquierdo López said the manner would have been similar to the way tadpole shrimp eat today: It would swim upside down, collecting food particles, then bringing them up from the back to the front, with the mandibles chewing and grinding the food.
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This group of mandibulates that Odaraia belonged to evolved and went on to diversify into three main groups, Izquierdo López said. Some went on land and became insects; another evolved into the centipedes we see today; and another remained in the oceans, developing into crustaceans like crabs, shrimps and even sea monkeys.
"It's all about the weirdness and magical nature of everything that surrounds us," he said.
"It's sometimes just good to just sit down and wonder what happened 500 million years ago, what happened in the universe, our animals.... All of these questions are questions that make our life a little bit more meaningful."
Digital Video Producer
1moCutest fish ever 😄