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Description
490 million years ago, in the late Cambrian period, of what is now Wisconsin, a weird armored creature patrols the bottom of the ocean. It is an Aglaspis barrandei. It may look like the trilobites it shares its environment with, but its only a relative of them. Living in the sea floor it probably fed on organic debris it found in the sediments. Covered in armor it would have had some of the necessary protection against predators. The relationship of Aglaspis, trilobites, and the rest of its extinct kin, with modern arthropods, is unclear. They could be related to mandibulates (myriapods and crustaceans), to chelicerates (sea spiders and arachnids), or to neither in particular. Whatever it is, it is clearly just one representative of the complex and enigmatic evolutionary history of the arthropod lineage.

Description
490 million years ago, in the late Cambrian period, of what is now Wisconsin, a weird armored creature patrols the bottom of the ocean. It is an Aglaspis barrandei. It may look like the trilobites it shares its environment with, but its only a relative of them. Living in the sea floor it probably fed on organic debris it found in the sediments. Covered in armor it would have had some of the necessary protection against predators. The relationship of Aglaspis, trilobites, and the rest of its extinct kin, with modern arthropods, is unclear. They could be related to mandibulates (myriapods and crustaceans), to chelicerates (sea spiders and arachnids), or to neither in particular. Whatever it is, it is clearly just one representative of the complex and enigmatic evolutionary history of the arthropod lineage.