Fun Poll: Which of these would you like to see discovered?

[Phil]

As things are usually quite serious around here, I thought we might have a fun poll.

If you had the power to restore one of these extinct marine invertebrates to the modern oceans, which would you choose?

 

[cthulhu77]

Boy...thats a toss up between the giant nautilus (ussesss?) and the sea scorpion...
But remember, when the elder ones (or is it the old ones?) come back, all that stuff comes with them too!
Yaaaay.
Greg

 

[Architeuthoceras]

We know what all those animals looked like alive, except ammonites, so just a glimpse of a live one would be wonderful. To put them in the oceans today would give Steve & Kat way too much to do. And I would have to move closer to the sea and take up scuba. But what would I do with my poor old jackass Maybell?

 

[Melissa]

I agree with Kevin, ammonites, but for a far more frivolous reason - their fossils structure is so pleasing and pretty, I'd like to see one in motion. No matter how many trilobite cookies I eat, I'm just not as excited about trilobites. But I'll post a photo of a trilobite fossil that was given to me soon.

Melissa

 

[Steve O'Shea]

We know what all those animals looked like alive, except ammonites, so just a glimpse of a live one would be wonderful. To put them in the oceans today would give Steve & Kat way too much to do. And I would have to move closer to the sea and take up scuba. But what would I do with my poor old jackass Maybell?

You just tell us what sort of environment to look in and we'll happily go in search .... we'd abandon all else at the drop of a hat!

 

[Jean]

Well, I would normally go for ammonites or belemnites but I think Hallucenogenia is just tooo weird & I'd loove to see one in the flesh (so to speak!)

J

 

[Phil]

No-one chosen the trilobite yet? Those things were not as popular as I thought!

Good choice Jean!

Here's a picture of a fossil and a recent reconstruction of Hallucigenia from the Cambrian Chen-jiang fauna of China. This animal is so weird it was named after a hallucination! Originally reconstructed as marching along the sea-bed with seven pairs of spines forming the 'legs'; it is now thought the animal was reconstructed upside-down. The animal probably walked along on tube feet with the spines running along its' torso projecting upwards. The 'head' is always indistinct and shows no clearly defined sense organs. The animal was probably related to the velvet worm, Peripatus, as part of the Onychophora and examples covered in armoured plates have been discovered in China.

Very strange indeed.

 

[Jean]

Thanks Phil, That is such a weird beastie!

J

 

[WhiteKiboko]

You just tell us what sort of environment to look in and we'll happily go in search .... we'd abandon all else at the drop of a hat!

Just have Kat set the Way Back Machine for a really long time ago.....

 

[tonmo]

This animal is so weird it was named after a hallucination!

I love that!

 

[Phil]

Well, we are over halfway and it's neck and neck, or rather mantle and thorax between the enigmatic molluscs and the armoured arthropods.

Could this specimen of Mixopterus swing the vote in favour of the bugs, I wonder?


Mixopterus

 

[um...]

What about Opabinia? Weird, weird, weird.

 

[Phil]

Opabinia?

Another cracking choice!

This Cambrian oddity had five eyes and a flexible trunk with a grasping claw at the end. It had a segmented carapace and has caused many a headache amongst palaeontologists keen on reconstructing and classifying this animal. Dr Sam Gon III has recently redescribed the animal and has interpreted the claw as being reconstructed at 90 degrees to its original plane. Opabinia, has also been reinterpreted as an anomalocarid so perhaps you could have voted for 6)!

The example below comes from the Burgess Shale. Dr Gon's images, with fantastic fossil specimens is available to view here:

Opabinia

 

[Architeuthoceras]

Something to sway the vote towards ammonites

Nipponites

Would you have seen this floating in midwater or laying on the bottom?

Externally shelled cephalopods RULE

 

[Fujisawas Sake]

Nope.... all of you are wrong...

Bring back LIOPLEURODON!

Yup, big Jurassic baddie with lots of teeth and a WHOLE LOTTA attitude.

Hee hee

John

"Not to put too fine a point on it
Say I'm the only bee in your bonnet
Put a little birdhouse in your soul..."

They Might Be Giants