Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Wiwaxia.

Wiwaxia was one of the weirdest of all the oddball animals of the Burgess Shale. It had a foot like a snail, a shell like a limpet, and scales like a fish on its shell. And the weirdest of all is that it had twelve glowing spines sticking out the top. 



Wiwaxia may be weird, but there are many other weird animals in the Burgess Shale, like Amiskwia, Anomalocaris, Opabinia, Waptia, Leanchoilia, and Kerygmachela. 


Wiwaxia was about 1" and vulnerable to many of the odd predators in the Burgess Shale, like Anomalocaris. It had to have a defense that would definitely fool a predator of thinking it's more dangerous than it really was, which was its glowing spines. 

Posted by Art at 1:59 PM
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8 comments:

  1. FlavorDavJune 8, 2011 at 5:49 PM

    Thanks! But how does anyone know that it had glwoing spines?

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  2. FlavorDavJune 8, 2011 at 6:05 PM

    http://natgeotv.com/uk/the-story-of-earth/videos/wiwaxia

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  3. ArtJune 9, 2011 at 6:47 AM

    I don't know for sure about the glowing spines. I read about it on my creature card.

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  4. ArtJune 9, 2011 at 6:49 AM

    http://www.charliesplayhouse.com/images/ancient-creature-cards.png

    ReplyDelete
  5. ArtJune 9, 2011 at 1:52 PM

    That's a really cool video!!!!!!!!!!

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  6. CaravelleJune 18, 2011 at 3:57 PM

    The glowing spines really surprise me too, I can't find anything about it on Google or Wikipedia. The article does talk about *growing*, do you think there might have been a typo ?

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  7. ArtJune 18, 2011 at 4:04 PM

    There is some information on this page: http://discovermagazine.com/1998/dec/thecolorfulcambr1565/

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  8. CaravelleJune 19, 2011 at 10:04 AM

    Wow, that is amazing ! Thank you.

    In the original paper they say that Wiwaxia was iridescent in clear water, and silvery with flashes of color when it moved in turbid water.

    ReplyDelete

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