Ancient Large Predator With Strange Eyes Found

Weird eyes of an ancient ocean predator have been found in Australia. It was believed that all types of eyes were known. The creature with the unusual eyes has been identified. It was an anomalocaris, a very large shellfish.

They didn't see the world like whales or even fish. Each eye had 16,000 lenses and was three centimeters in diameter. This is more than the 3,000 lense housefly eye, but not as numerous as the dragonfly eye with its 30,000 lenses. Make no mistake though - eye development was like an arms race, the animals with superior eyes reproducing and surviving. The anomalocaris was a good hunter, moving quickly on their prey in clear waters.

This ancient hunter had an odd shape. It had spined claws on each side of the body and two giant claws on its head. Its eyes were on stalks. The mouth was circular with serrations around the edge pointing inward.

The site where it was found, on Kangaroo Island, holds more strange animals to be investigated. These were the earliest of species, too old to be satisfactorily classified into known animal groups.