The image you see here is a composite from many publications that have been pulled together into a full composite with scaling by the talented Alejandro Izquierdo, an evolutionary biologist fast-tracking his way to a PhD at the University of Toronto's Invertebrate Palaeontology lab. The Canadaspis shadow you see here is from Derek Brigg's 1975 reconstruction. I have modified the image further still and you are welcome to use it as a teaching tool — but please do credit Alejandro as he did all the heavy lifting in putting it together.
I caught up with Alejandro this week to ask about the origins of this image — which I have modified a bit further still — and to talk about Pakucaris apatis and Fibulacaris nereidis — two recent additions to our knowledge of bivalved arthropods. Both show us how "bizarre" some of these animals can be. Pakucaris presents different features — frontal filaments, a pygidium — which may be important in the future to understand early arthropod evolution.
Beyond his research into our Cambrian friends, Alejandro is a science writer and prog-rock aficionado. Should you want to catch up with him, find him on Twitter @trichodes or for all sorts of yummy evolutionary biology goodness seek out the site he co-runs with Marc Riera, an ecologist and PhD student looking at biological invasions at CREAF — a public research centre that exists as a consortium between different public entities — administrations, universities, and research centres and institutes. You can find Marc @bitoptera and their combined work at @ElephaBacteria.
Do visit their delightful website — On elephants and bacteria — a feast of interdisciplinary topics that gather evolutionary biology, astronomy, history with a mission to advance scientific thinking. It is well worth exploring. Here is the link: https://onelephantsandbacteria.net/
