Rare fossils in China show brain structures of prehistoric predators

Strange creatures' nerve structures captured for first time in fossils in China

An artist's impression of a Lyrarapax unguispinus, one of the species of the world's first predators.

The fossils show an animal called Lyrarapax unguispinus that lived during the Cambrian Period, a pivotal juncture in the history of life on Earth when many major animal groups first appeared. It was a member of a group known as anomalocaridids - primitive relatives of arthropods, which include crustaceans, insects and spiders - that hunted prey with a pair of claw-like, grasping appendages in front of the eyes.

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