May 2026 – Nix Illustration

Waukartus

Waukartus muscularis was a small marine arthropod that lived during the early Silurian, about 437 million years ago, in an equatorial inland sea covering what is now Wisconsin, USA.

It was a member of the myriapods, related to modern centipedes and millipedes – but it represents a very early offshoot of this lineage, with its ancestors branching off sometime before the amphibious euthycarcinoids.

Growing up to about 3cm long (~1.2″), Waukartus had a head with four pairs of small appendages and what may be a pair of small stalked eyes, eleven body segments each with one pair of legs, and a telson with a pair of blade-like projections.

It appears to have been fully aquatic, but its unbranched limbs closely resemble those of terrestrial myriapods, suggesting that these arthropods initially evolved their walking legs for use on the seafloor and only later exapted them for land.

Nanophoca

Nanophoca vitulinoides was a small earless seal that lived during the mid-Miocene (~14-12 million years ago) in what is now Belgium, which at the time was covered by the southern margin of the North Sea.

It was slightly smaller than any modern pinnipeds, no more than 1m long (3’3″), and had more mobile front and back flippers than modern earless seals — indicating it had a different swimming style than its living relatives, and that it may have been more mobile on land.

It also had a very dense skeleton, which would have made it a slower, less maneuverable swimmer. It may have fed on small prey on the seafloor in shallow coastal waters, similar to modern bearded seals.

Mimodactylus

Mimodactylus libanensis was a small pterosaur that lived in what is now Lebanon during the late Cretaceous, about 95 million years ago.

It was the latest-surviving known member of a group of pterosaurs called istiodactyliformes, closely related to the Chinese Haopterus.

The only known fossil specimen had a wingspan of around 1.3m (~4’3″) — but it was still a juvenile and the full adult size of Mimodactylus is currently unknown. Its long narrow wings were shaped much like those of modern seabirds, suggesting it used dynamic soaring over the shallow sea and scattered islands that covered the region at the time.

Its fairly broad snout and strong pointed teeth may have been used to forage for shrimp at the water’s surface similar to some modern albatrosses, a previously undocumented feeding style for pterosaurs.

Cambroraster

Cambroraster falcatus was a radiodont that lived during the Cambrian, about 508-505 million years ago, in what is now western Canada. Part of the hurdiid family of radiodonts, it reached sizes of up to 30cm long (~12″) – making it one of the largest animals known from the Burgess Shale fossil deposits.

Its distinctively-shaped massive head shield led to it being nicknamed “the spaceship” during collection and study of numerous fossil specimens. This was then referenced in its species name of “falcatus“, inspired by its resemblance to the fictional Millennium Falcon from the Star Wars franchise.

Its short frontal appendages bore long curved spiny blades that formed a basket-like structure. Originally these were thought to be used to sift through seafloor sediment, but more recently they’ve been proposed as filter-feeding structures instead.