• mozz@mbin.grits.dev
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    7 months ago

    Just to put some context:

    • Predatory scorpions a couple feet long
    • Armored millipedes larger than a man; they were probably herbivorous but as the article notes they “would have had few, if any, predators.”
    • There is a theory, possibly not real well accepted but it makes sense to me, that trilobites were the creature that way-back-when invented effective predation shortly after evolving vision. (Before which the world was a fairly benign place.) The theory further supposes that the Cambrian Explosion was caused by every other organism on the planet having to scramble not to have their soft blobby flesh munched on at leisure by a limitless army of armored, invulnerable hunters, which they couldn’t see or avoid, but who could see and follow them.
    • Windex007@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      I salivate whenever I hear about these ancient mega arthropods. Like, gigantic and armoured, whatever. But by modern standards, blind and incredibly stupid. And in that atmosphere you’d be constantly so well oxygenated. I don’t know why but I’m convinced these big fucks tasted like lobster.

    • MonkderDritte@feddit.de
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      7 months ago

      Before which the world was a fairly benign place.

      Not at all. Cambrian explosion was wild. Had the irst alpha predators too (ugh… Amplectobeluidae and Opabiniiae).

      Well, i think they are precursors of insects?