#  MCZ Lunchtime Seminar 

 



    ![an illustration of prehistoric invertebrates](/sites/g/files/omnuum6431/files/styles/hwp_5_4__480x385/public/2025-10/Hallucigenia%20side%20view.jpg?itok=1E4L7Y3T) 

 



 

####  calendar\_today Date and Time 

 **November 3, 2025** 

 12:00PM - 01:00PM EST 

####  pin\_drop Location 

 **MCZ 101A, Robert A. Gilbert Room**  



 

 



 

### *Hallucigenia's* diet illuminates the ecology of Cambrian lobopodians

**Javier Ortega-Hernández**  
Associate Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology  
Curator of Invertebrate Paleontology

The armoured lobopodian *Hallucigenia* embodies the seemingly uncanny nature of the animals that evolved during the Cambrian Explosion over 500 million years ago. Initially regarded as an evolutionary oddball, the exceptional preserved anatomy of *Hallucigenia* has been substantially revised, leading to a better understanding of its relationships with other lobopodians and phylogenetic affinities with extant panarthropod phyla. However, the ecology and behaviour of *Hallucigenia* largely enigmatic owing to the difficulties of interpreting its functional morphology and the perceived lack of modern analogues. Restudy of a composite fossil assemblage from the middle Cambrian Burgess Shale demonstrates swarm-like behaviour of several small *Hallucigeni*a individuals scavenging on a dead ctenophore. The lack of grasping, masticatory, or piercing mouthparts in *Hallucigenia* points to suction feeding as a viable strategy to consume the gelatinous carcass. Reassessment of the morphology of *Hallucigenia* ​functional analogues shared with extant pycnogonids, including an elongate anterior end with a terminal mouth opening and enlarged foregut chambers lined up with sclerotized denticles. These observations suggest that suction feeding is ancestral for stem-group Onychophora and highlights the critical trophic role of small-bodied armoured lobopodians as degraders of soft-bodied carcasses in Cambrian benthic ecosystems.



 

 



 

 

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