Life reconstruction of Balhuticaris voltae. Image credit: Hugo Salais.
SciNews has a story about a large bivalved arthropod from the Burgess Shale. This animal, Balhuticaris voltae, lived about 506 million years ago in what is now British Columbia, Canada. It is one of the largest known Cambrian arthropods and the largest bivalved arthropod every found. The new species was described in a paper in the journal Science.
Eleven specimens of Balhuticaris voltae were collected from the Marble Canyon area of the famous Burgess Shale, a Cambrian-age fossil field in Canada.
“Balhuticaris voltae is one of the biggest fully-preserved animals from the Burgess Shale and the Cambrian,” the scientists said.
“The increasing ecological complexity of the Cambrian has long been recognized based on its planktonic communities or the filling of the pelagic zone and species such as Balhuticaris voltae, thus, not only exemplify how gigantism in the Cambrian occurred in a wider number of groups than Radiodonta but also exemplify this increasing complexity of the Cambrian ecosystems.”
