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Five Eyes and Nose Arms - Freaks of the Cambrian Explosion Opabinia was a Cambrian animal with five
eyes. Apart from the obvious, what makes
five eyes so strange is that it violates the principle of bilateral symmetry –
something which characterizes all animal life from worms to insects to humans,
ever since we split with jellyfish and sponges.
Opabinia also had a long
nose. On the end of its nose was a
gripper. The gripper was comprised of
spines that functioned sort of like fingers or pinchers.[1] Opabinia's
body was segmented into parts. In this
manner, it was like an arthropod, only without antennae,[2]
and arthropods are part of the larger group bilateria. Since it lacks bilateral symmetry with regard
to its eyes yet otherwise seems to be a bilaterian, it remains something of an
anomaly. Another
Cambrian creature that also may have had more than two eyes was Myoscolex.
It is notoriously hard to categorize this creature. Myoscolex
had a muscular trunk like an arthropod, which would make it family with
lobsters and insects, but it lacked head appendages. It had dorso-ventral differentiation and
gonads, like the primitive chordates humans later came from. Yet unlike chordates, it had legs coming out
of its belly. In this, it was like the
polychaete worms, which were not related to chordates or arthropods. Its body wall and intestines resembled that
of still another group, the nemathelmintha, which are entirely unrelated to
chordates. Dzik concludes Myoscolex was an early annelid worm at
the base of the split between arthropods and chordate-like forms.[3] If true, this would mean that Myoscolex is not so much a fossil
frankenstein as it is a witness to just how fast evolution can happen. If a creature like this retained so many
characters of so many different phyla as late as the Cambrian, it means it is near
the base of the divergence of the phyla, and is therefore a testimony to the
fact that the split between the major phyla happened not much earlier than the
Cambrian – thus confirming the reality of rapid evolution during the Cambrian
Explosion. This
is also exemplified in the primitive chordate Nectocaris. Simonetta
believed Nectocaris was a chordate.[4] But it had a segmented body, crustacean-like
eyes, appendages from the head, and a carapace-like shield on the head – traits
more akin with arthropods than chordates.[5] Thus, either Nectocaris is a fossil frankenstein, or else it is an intermediate
form so close to the base of the divergence of arthropods and chordates that it
confirms the reality of rapid evolution in the Cambrian Explosion. These Cambrian animals, which
exemplify traits of multiple phyla, even to the extent that they cannot be
classified, are a testimony to the extraordinarily rapid, diverse, and in some
cases frankensteinish pattern of evolutionary activity during the Cambrian Explosion. One
of the freaks to come out of the Cambrian Explosion was a spiny little animal
that was every bit as weird as its unique name – Wiwaxia. The list of
candidates for what this thing might be runs the gamut from slug to worm to
mollusk. Wiwaxia's appearance was that of an underwater porcupine. It had spines around the upper side of its
body. Morris proposed that Wiwaxia was slug-like.[6] Gould, for his part, believed Wiwaxia was most closely affiliated with
mollusks.[7] Morris asserted that it bore resemblance to a
slug named Halkieriid, but Gould
questioned him based on the absence of legs on Wiwaxia and on Halkieriid's
armored plates.[8] Butterfield asserted that the 520 million
year old creature was a worm of sorts, but more like an earthworm, because its
sclerites were of a similar nature to the hair-like quills of earthworms.[9] But the presence of sclerites might also
indicate its kinship with Chancelloria,
another scleritome organism which sat on the bottom of the sea something like a
mollusk.[10] Wiwaxia
also resembles the polychaetes, which are segmented marine worms with
appendages on each segment sort of like centipedes except the appendages are
more like clumps of stiff hair than like legs.
Perhaps the reason why Wiwaxia is so hard to classify is
because it takes its DNA from all of the above.
Maybe some heavenly entities were cutting and splicing DNA from slugs,
worms, mollusks, and polychaetes – resulting in the frankenstein fossil Wiwaxia.
Angels might have done this for a joke, to laugh at the monsters that
resulted from their lust. As Martin
said, "Wiwaxia, Opabinia, and Amiskwia look like concoctions made for
a children's cartoon series."[11] The creationist narrative in Genesis 1 is contradicted by many ancient Christian texts. Instead of an Almighty Creator God, ancient Christian texts espouse that the universe is born from blind arrogance and stupidity. The angels caused evolution to occur from species to species. There are many gods, (or aliens?), and the Christian God is just one among them. Satan the Devil writes scripture, and thus the Bible was polluted with Genesis 1. Archaeology and modern scholarship demonstrate that Genesis is indeed corrupted. Cavemen walk with Adam and Eve. Esoteric prophecies reveal the coming of Christ, and also reveal the dark forces that govern the cosmos. Such are the ancient Christian writings. Science vindicates the truth of these ideas. Evolution often happens too fast for Darwin’s theory. Gaps in the fossil record indicate that some kind of unnatural force acts together with natural selection. Astrobiology reveals that intelligent life probably evolved long before us. The fossil record reveals strange clues that aliens abducted species and transported them across oceans, and that DNA from diverse lineages was combined to spawn hybrid species. Evidently, aliens influence evolution, and they are the gods of the world’s religions. This is not fiction. All these facts are thoroughly documented in the links above. [1] Briggs, Derek E G; Erwin, Douglas H; Collier, Frederick J; Clark, Chip. The Fossils of the Burgess Shale. 1994, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC, p 42 [2] Whittington, H B. The Enigmatic Animal Opabinia Regalis, Middle Cambrian, Burgess Shale, British Columbia. 1975, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B 271(910), p 1-43 [3] Dzik, Jerzy. Anatomy and Relationships of the Early Cambrian Worm Myoscolex. 2004, Zoologica Scripta, p 32, 56-69 [4] Simonetta, A M. Is Nectocaris Pteryx a Chordate? 1988, Bolletino di Zoologica 55, p 63-68 [5] Briggs, Derek E G; Erwin, Douglas H; Collier, Frederick J; Clark, Chip. The Fossils of the Burgess Shale. 1994, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC, p 209 [6] Morris, Simon Conway. The Middle Cambrian Metazoan Wiwaxia Corrugata (Matthew) from the Burgess Shale and Ogygopsis Shale, British Columbia, Canada. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B 307, p 507-582 [7] Gould, Stephen J. Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History. 1989, W W Norton & Company, NY, [8] Morris, Simon Conway; Gould, Stephen J. Showdown on the Burgess Shale. Natural History Magazine, 107 (10), p 48-55. [9] Butterfield, Nicholas J. A Reassessment of the Enigmatic Burgess Shale Fossil Wiwaxia Corrugata (Matthew) and Its Relationship to the Polycaete Canadia Spinosa (Walcott). 1990, Paleobiology 16, No 3, p 287-303 [10] Briggs, Derek E G; Erwin, Douglas H; Collier, Frederick J; Clark, Chip. The Fossils of the Burgess Shale. 1994, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC, p 42 [11] Martin, Robert A. Missing Links: Evolutionary Concepts & Transitions Through Time. 2004, Jones and Bartlett Publishers, Sudbury, MA, p 112 [12] Briggs, Derek E G; Erwin, Douglas H; Collier, Frederick J; Clark, Chip. The Fossils of the Burgess Shale. 1994, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC, p 113 |
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