570 vanished lives

04Paleozoic

They occupied seafloors for nearly 300 million years, and their compound eyes preserve secrets of early vision.

17Paleozoic

This many-segmented arthropod grew longer than a person in coal-swamp forests.

30Paleozoic

A meter-long swimmer with grasping frontal appendages was a giant of Cambrian seas.

31Paleozoic

Five eyes and a grasping proboscis made this small swimmer one of the Cambrian’s strangest forms.

32Paleozoic

Paired spines guarded a soft-bodied walker once reconstructed upside down.

33Paleozoic

This giant sea scorpion may have exceeded two meters in length.

34Paleozoic

A long straight shell housed one of the largest predators of Ordovician seas.

80Paleozoic

A slender body preserves repeated muscle blocks and internal traces important for interpreting early chordates.

81Paleozoic

Rows of scales and long spines armored this small seafloor grazer.

101Paleozoic

Paddle-shaped hind limbs carried this sea scorpion through shallow coastal water.

137Paleozoic

Eyes sat at the ends of a crossbar and a long proboscis ended in a toothed grasping organ.

161Precambrian

Its flat oval body moved across microbial mats like a rhythmically quilted cushion, leaving feeding traces behind.

162Precambrian

A horseshoe-shaped front led a body of offset leaflike units, giving it the appearance of a flattened soft worm.

163Precambrian

A featherlike body of repeating branches was anchored by a disc in deep water, yet it had neither chlorophyll nor a mouth.

164Precambrian

Its low oval body crawled across microbial mats while a front feeding structure left fan-shaped sets of scratches.

165Paleozoic

Two pairs of curved head spines, long antennae and dozens of fine legs made this two-centimeter arthropod exquisitely elaborate.

166Paleozoic

Its stout body hid in a U-shaped burrow while a spiny, hook-studded throat could turn inside out to seize food.

201Precambrian

Rows of quilted sacks lived half-buried in sand, forming one of the Ediacaran seafloor's strangest communities.

202Precambrian

Six branching vanes surrounded a central axis, making the organism resemble a soft pine cone standing on the seabed.

203Precambrian

Three curving spiral arms created a body symmetry almost absent among living animals.

204Paleozoic

Ten pairs of stubby legs beneath a soft body place it near the early history of velvet worms and arthropods.

205Paleozoic

A pair of great appendages ended in three long whips that could sense, seize and move food.

206Paleozoic

A huge domed carapace covered its head, giving this radiodont the outline of a tiny finned submarine.

207Paleozoic

A straight conical shell several meters long made it one of the most conspicuous large cephalopods of Ordovician seas.