Description

Anomalocaris sp.
Middle Cambrian
Latham Shale
Marble Mountains, CA, USA

60mm Anomalocaris appendage from California on 126mm slab with a small brachiopod. First we have seen in 20 years.

Arthropod. Anomalocaridid. Association.

Anomalocaris is an genus of early arthropod from the Cambrian of North America, China, and Australia. Scientists named three genera that turned out to be three different parts of the body of Anomalocaris. What made it tough to figure out is that the animal had a mouthpart and frontal appendages that could mineralize while its body was too soft to preserve at most sites.

At a time when an unusually-large animal was 12 inches long, Anomalocaris, may have reached 18 inches in length. When many animals crawled around on the sea bottom, it was a swimming nightmare striking from above.Here’s your chance to pick up something that was hard enough to find in the old days.  As a bonus, it’s an oddball association piece with the brachiopod and the cephalon of the trilobite Bristolia insolens.