Once the dinocaridids started exploring active swimming lifestyles, one branch of this group quickly became incredibly successful and diverse: the radiodonts. With muscular swimming flaps, head carapaces, stalked compound eyes, disc-like mouths, and large spiny front appendages, they occupied a wide range of ecological roles – and some of them went on to became giants, some of the largest animals of their time.
They were some of the closest relatives to the ancestors of the true arthropods (or “euarthropods”). And while the earliest radiodont fossils are known from about 518 million years ago, much like other panarthropods their actual evolutionary origins have to go back much deeper into the early Cambrian since they already lived alongside representatives of various early euarthropod groups.
Continue reading “Cambrian Explosion #42: Radiodonta – The Strangest Shrimps”
