500 Million Year Old Monster Predator Revealed

Hurdia victoria was previously thought to be a crustacean-like animal. However, newly reconstructed specimens now lead scientists to believe it was one of the earliest top predators on Earth.

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Although fragments of Hurdia victoria have been in fossil collections for nearly a century, nobody ever quite realized what they were looking at. The fossil fragments were assumed to be parts of different animals–jelly fish, sea cucumbers and the like. It wasn’t until palaeobiologists at Uppsala University in Sweden, the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto and the Natural History Museum in London painstakingly assembled and reconstructed the fossil fragments that the true form of the animal emerged. Ph.D. student Allison Daley is studying Hurlia for her doctoral thesis.

“What is most unusual about Hurdia,” Daley told EcoWorldly, “is the large head shield, which extends far forward from the rest of its body. The use of this bizarre structure is unknown, and we find nothing similar in either fossil or modern arthropods.”

Hurdia victoria would have lived at the dawn of the Cambrian age. It’s world was dominated by trilobites, corals, moluscs and small, jawless fish around 30 cm long, called ostracoderms. In this world, researchers believe that Hurdia would have been a fearsome oceanic hunter.

“Hurdia would likely have been a predator in the marine ecosystem in which it lived,” says Daley. “Its sharp teeth and large appendages would have been well suited for eating prey, which could have included trilobites, worms, other arthropods, or anything it could find! The role of Hurdia in its environment is similar to that of T-rex in the age of the dinosaurs or the Great White Shark today.

“The length of the largest specimens we have is about 20cm. Fragments indicate a larger size of 30-40cm, so the max size was probably around half a meter.”

Arthropods, such as crustaceans, insects and spiders, are today’s closest living relatives to Hudia victoria. More information on the findings will be published in this week’s issue of Science.

Image credit: Photo (top and gallery-left) artist’s depiction of Hurlia victoria by Marianne Collins. Copyright; used courtesy of Science Magazine and the Royal Ontario Museum. (Gallery-center) A side view of Hurdia victoria used courtesy of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. (Gallery-right) A dorsal view of Hurlia victoria, used courtesy of the Royal Ontario Museum.

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