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.

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.

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.

210Paleozoic

Flattened swimming paddles and great toothed claws made it a formidable hunter in Silurian water.

251Paleozoic

Its antennae, gills and clawed legs reveal far more than a mineralized trilobite shell.

252Paleozoic

Robust leg bases formed crushing jaws for small trilobites and other shelled prey.

253Paleozoic

Two large shields covered a soft body equipped with fully segmented trilobite-like limbs.

254Paleozoic

A bivalved carapace, compound eyes and mandibles reveal an early mandibulate; some fossils preserve embryos under the carapace.

255Paleozoic

At nearly seventy centimeters, it is among the largest complete trilobites ever found.

256Paleozoic

Its long pincers carried slanting blades suited to holding or slicing soft prey.