Panacanthocaris is the weirdest of the weird. It's spiny carapace is very distinctive. Work in press by myself and colleagues shows that the genus Iliella is actually a senior subjective synonym of genus Panacanthocaris. Iliella was described first by Tchernyshev (1940), and the carapace was illustrated upside down. Panacanthocaris was described second by Novojilov (1957), and the carapace was illustrated right-side up. Oops. #invertfest #invertefest
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You can tell that Tchernyshev messed up if you note the location and orientation of the mandibular bulge (where the mandibular muscles attach under the carapace). Because this is still in press, I am using the old nomenclature. So many questions unanswered: why all the spines? why central Asia? #paleontology #palaeontology #fossil
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@Thomashegna I love how as a layperson I saw this in my feed and thought it was HR Giger fan art and then I realized no, the real world gives us some amazing life forms, too.