Opabinia, Prehistoric Oddities

It might be a distant cousin of shrimp or it might be unrelated to anything alive today.This weird four-inch-long animal lived in the sea that covered what is now Canada about 530 million years ago.

Instead of legs, it had 14 pairs of oarlike gills used for swimming. But the real strangeness was saved for the head. It had five eyes – two pairs on stalks and another sitting in the middle of the top of the head. In front of all these eyes was a long flexible nozzle with a claw at the end. Scientists think the claw captured food and carried it to the mouth.
Link Via [Neatorama]