News Paleontology

This ancient, Lovecraftian apex predator chased and pierced soft prey

Spiny facial appendages were best suited to reaching for soft prey and catching it on spikes

An illustration of an Anomalocaris canadensis underwater.

Anomalocaris canadensis (illustrated), one of the earliest known apex predators, hunted in the water around half a billion years ago.

Katrina Kenny

By Nikk Ogasa

One of the earliest apex predators, and perhaps the freakiest to ever haunt the sea, may have also been a delicate eater.

For decades, paleontologists have assumed that the long-extinct Anomalocaris canadensis — roughly translated as “the abnormal shrimp from Canada” — used two spiny appendages on its face to grab hard trilobites off the seafloor and crush and eat them.