'Beautiful Nightmare' Crab Sported Lobster Shell, Shrimp Mouth and Soccer Ball E - Sensationalist Headlines

https://www.livescience.com/65316-ancient-crab-giant-eyes.html Hey look its Mr Krabs

Quick, someone throw it at Hungrybox.

https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/107008/bff2d3db-7934-4b55-8767-fca23988011b/image.png Really though, looks like it could be related to the Anomalocaris.

Spore was right all along.

It has big eyes That makes it cute

Looks like Subnautica concept art.

the first creature created by aliens that experienced proto-anime

I believe the jalapeno term is "kawaii"

Absolutely no way. Anomalocaris was a dinocaridid, which weren't even arthropods, let alone crustaceans. (They're related to arthropods, though, but only loosely, similar to velvet worms) Dinocaridids are last known in the fossil record almost 400 million years ago, having been outcompeted by fish due to their ability to grow without vulnerable moulting periods, almost 6 times older than these crab fossils. Had dinocaridids survived, they'd have resembled fish or squid with paired trunks and insect eyes more than crabs due to how streamlined they already became early on. For two examples, here are Hurdia and Schinderhannes from roughly 500 million and 400 million years ago, respectively: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/323/5921/1597/F3.large.jpg https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Gabriele_Kuehl/publication/23983418/figure/fig1/AS:310139929284612@1450954529679/Holotype-of-Schinderhannes-bartelsi-A-Ventral-B-Interpretative-drawing-of.png

Thinking about the fact that entire classes of animals used to exists that don't fit within our commonly accepted categories is a mindfuck and a half

Definitely, if you really want examples of "how the hell are these examples of Earth life?" look no further than stylophorans [not to be confused with stylophora], which were ancient, asymmetrical echinoderms that were contemporaries of amphibians and had a brief overlap with the time of the earliest amniotes, and vetulicolia, an example of a time where chordates nearly evolved fish twice, independently: https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/images/ahr0cdovl3d3dy5saxzlc2npzw5jzs5jb20vaw1hz2vzl2kvmdawlzewnc80mjavb3jpz2luywwvu3r5bg9wag9yyw4tawxsdxn0cmf0aw9ulmpwzw-1550858266.jpeg?resize=768:* https://66.media.tumblr.com/840d663d0f0337097f1ead45cc228e9f/tumblr_n0gxon24pg1s5f2yxo1_1280.png

Fucks sake. Evolution and the things nature does are just insane. It almost does look like someone trying out a creature creature in a game and seeing what works.

It really does come across that way at times. Here are ten more gems that are part of still-living classes: http://cdn.sci-news.com/images/2016/05/image_3898-Diplomoceras.jpg Diplomoceras. aka "I'm an ammonite, but I really wanted to be a trombone." https://i.pinimg.com/originals/de/2a/bb/de2abbc456daa47e63dd7e6385eaf4d9.jpg Nipponites. It saw what Diplomoceras was doing, and decided to try the same thing while high on salts. https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/prehistoric-earth-a-natural-history/images/c/c0/024.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20190126003531 Chalicotherium. Knuckle-walked like a gorilla, fed like a giraffe . . . . . . most closely related to horses. http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/files/2011/01/Xenicibis.jpg http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/files/2011/01/Xenicibis-wing.jpg Xenicibis. An ibis that thought that wings being built for flight was boring, so it decided that punching other birds was more interesting. http://www.pasttime.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Ocepechelon-Information1.jpg Ocepechelon. A relative of leatherback sea turtles that was evolutionarily-convergent with the heads found on pipefish and seahorses. These, sadly, like a lot of sea turtles, were a victim of the extinction that killed off the dinosaurs and most sea reptiles, with the kinds we see today being descendant likely from only two surviving lineages that barely made it past. Alienochelys is comparatively more benign, and would resemble a leatherback with nostrils on the top of it's head. https://scontent-atl3-1.cdninstagram.com/vp/c85b1aa99a6b0b506a6fb7c842911802/5D3C9932/t51.2885-15/e35/50476295_259012748330390_174736090589770462_n.jpg?_nc_ht=scontent-atl3-1.cdninstagram.com Platyhystrix, an amphibian. It evolved a neural sail at the same time as sphenacodonts like Dimetrodon and Edaphosaurids did, despite the latter two being carnivorous and herbivorous eupelycosaur synapsids, respectively. No one knows why. http://www.dinosaurfact.net/Pictures/Arizonasaurus3.jpg Arizonasaurus. It, too, evolved a sail for an unknown reason, though it did so after the three listed above did. Despite appearances, it's most closely-related to crocodiles among living creatures, not dinosaurs. https://bw-1651cf0d2f737d7adeab84d339dbabd3-gallery.s3.amazonaws.com/images/image_2188789/file_2188789.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DV0H4eTVMAA2iat.jpg These are cotylorhynchus. They skipped head day. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C7drlHYU8AA7hod.jpg Nyctosaurus. Yes, it really had a giant crest that looked like a television antenna. Bizarrely, aerodynamic tests suggest it didn't get in the way of flight. By the way, yes, all animals I've posted in this thread actually existed. None of these bizarre forms were made up. Do note though I only posted nine, extinct species. That's because I wanted to save a living one as best for last, just to show how truly alien this world can get: http://images.wisegeek.com/chiton-on-rock.jpg This is a fuzzy chiton. They are not slugs, snails or limpets, but are still a kind of mollusk. That's not what makes them weird. Their shells are articulated with joints, made of separate pieces, that's also not why I brought them up. It's that they're an example of an ongoing drastic radiation that has yet to fully unfold. You see, chiton evolved eyes more recently than any other known lineage of animal. In fact, the first eyes on chiton are believed to be around the time that great apes first evolved. That in itself is also not what makes them weird. http://cdn.sci-news.com/images/2015/11/image_3453f-Chitons.jpg Their shell is a giant compound eyeball made of aragonite crystals instead of soft organic materials, complete with retinas. They have two types of optic sensory organ, with the orbs being lensed cameras and the holes being pinhole cameras. As they age, predatory attacks and erosion on their shell erode the eyes away, as they can't repair crystals, so they live on with thousands of retina that are blinded, permanently. The solution? They grow their shells bigger and add new eyeballs, meaning their vision steadily grows wider and has a progressively larger blindspot with age. The Earth has been and is a wild place.

You... You really saved the best for last. What the fuck.

That's cool and all but he would still be preyed on by the AnomaloBooba

This remains to be known, but it is believed to be for detecting predators above them before they come in direct contact. Their vision isn't the best, yet, but apparently can form simple pictures, which is more than most of their competition can do. Oh yeah, I also forgot to mention: chiton have teeth made of magnetite iron, which allows them to sense magnetism as they move around and eat, because clearly they aren't insane enough as-is with their eyes made of crystal rock. We really don't know why, they just do.

Does it go well with white wine and garlic

Grant us eyes

They're close to inedible, and have been compared to the nutritional value of prepared leather.

Figures the giant tentacle with an octopus-like head is from Japan. Fascinating post, by the way! I love reading about extinct animals, particularly the more bizarre ones. It's a shame we'll likely never really be able to know exactly what they looked like.

Man, they cut out a lot of the cool ideas that were in Alpha builds.

Man, these SCP entries just get more and more crazy

pshhh alright nerd

Really nice to see others aware of how bizarre prehistoric life could get. I imagine people designing aliens could draw quite a bit of inspiration from some of those Paleozoic organisms. Even now, there are still things on this planet (and probably many more undiscovered organisms) that straight up feel like aliens, case in point: https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/346895/ff96fa4e-ff68-4d85-96ef-c16cf4f854fe/image.png Praya Dubia, a deep-sea colonial organism called a siphonophore that can grow up to 50 meters. Any Endless Ocean 1/2 players probably know the shock of diving in the abyss only to find this gigantic alien-looking thing emerge out of the dark. This is about as alien as an organism on Earth could look imo. While not exactly looking alien, the extinct Yi Qi also has my interest for being the closest thing we know to an actual existing wyvern. https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/346895/ce3bc69d-8de5-45f9-9711-997534bdeca7/image.png

Oh damn I was about to say this. I thought I was the only paleontologist / paleo nerd on here. I studied three years of paleo and then changed to hard rock mining my last year, ha. If we're talkin' about strange animals, practically anything from the Cambrian Explosion will be pretty weird. Hallucigenia are pretty funky dudes. H. sparsa: https://scontent-ams3-1.cdninstagram.com/vp/d0ca3816758d7ce6ef2cecbb733e89b4/5D5B1B9C/t51.2885-15/e35/43915269_902010516671151_6334895185383685402_n.jpg?_nc_ht=scontent-ams3-1.cdninstagram.com Lil worms with danger spikes and neck wrigglies

Is this some kind of really well disguised Badage Boys copypasta

Holy shit that's fucking cool. Is there any other interesting favorites you guys have from the other epochs?