Arthropods

In terms of numbers of species, the Phylum Arthropoda is the most diverse group of animals alive today, and was also the most diverse Cambrian group. Examples of familiar arthropods include insects, millipedes and centipedes, spiders, horseshoe crabs, scorpions, shrimps, and crabs. Arthropods are untied by their jointed appendages and the fact that they must shed their exoskeletons in order to grow.

While the basic body plans of many arthropod groups have gone virtually unchanged for many millions of years, Cambrian arthropods show a great diversity of strange body forms that subsequently went extinct.

The exceptional soft-body fossil record of Utah presents a special window on some of these unusual arthropod groups, including anomalocaridids, arachnomorphs, and bivalved arthropods.

Please click on the images below to find out more about these groups.