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Description
YAY SQUISHY THINGS

I love squishy things. I like to poke them. And I love dead things, especially if they were dead a loooooooooong time before I was born. So it's only natural that I should love dead, squishy things. That sounds surprisingly disturbing.

Clockwise from the top left:

#1: Tullimonstrum gregarium
The supersquishy Tully Monster is the biggest, squishiest thing in this drawing. Fossils are found in carboniferous rocks in Mazon Creek, Illinois, and quite frankly no one knows what to make of them. They are like nothing else on earth, though they bear very superficial resemblance to other squishy things like worms and Opabinia. They were long and sausage-shaped, with a segmented body and a fin-like structure on one end and something like a garden hose with teeth on the other. A pair of odd little appendages sprouted from underneath the head (the end closer to the garden hose) and were tipped with what were probably eyes. There were no bones or hard structures at all in its body and thus it is frequently preserved it odd contortions which serve to accentuate its squishiness. Big ones could get up to 35 cm long.

#2: Canadia spinosa
Much older and less enigmatic, Canadia (named after the country where it was found, and my homeland) is a small worm. Note the definitiveness with which I say worm. Specifically, an Annelid. Specifically, a Bristleworm. As opposed to an Earthworm or Leech. Yeah, compared to the Tully Monster we know tons about this critter. About 3 cm* long, it was tiny by today's standards of worminess (Some bobbit worms can grow to over 3 meters) but no less cool. A pair of antennae probably afforded it the sense of touch, and large, heavily bristle-ated notopodia probably were a defense against predators, much like today's Bearded Fireworm (whose colours and name inspired my worm's colours) and could easily have been iridescent, as evidenced by tiny striations on the individual bristles. It would have walked on the seabed with its neuropodis, located under the notopodia. Its gut was straight and could have been extended out of the body as a proboscis, much like other annelids. Imagine if you could extend your esophagus through your mouth to reach food halfway across the room. That would be weird.

*The same article also states that its length was up to 20 cm. Wikipedia, you are a miserable source (As if this wasn't already common knowledge.)

#3: Promissum pulchrum
Fie! For shame! What doeth thou here, enemy of the squishies? No vertebrate shall be permitted entry into the legions of squishiness. Begone!
Conodonts are an odd group of fish (not squishy) which are mostly known from their teeth, termed "conodont elements", which were the subject of much debate for years. People thought they were everything from naturally-grown crystals to the spicules of sponges to what they actually turned out to be, the tooth-like parts of primitive chordates. But even today, when we have fossils of entire animals, Conodonts are still wrapped in controversy. We know they were chordates, but what kind of chordate? Were they primitive craniates? Were they more derived vertebrates? We don't know, but it seems likely that they lie outside both vertebrata and craniata, as their odd little teeth seem to be the only hard parts of their body I know of save for a notochord. Thus we grant them their place in the kingdom of squishyness, albeit grudgingly. Harrumph.
The animals behind conodont teeth were very odd, resembling eels but with positively enormous eyes and no jaws. Many were miniscule, a single centimeter or so in length, but Promissum from South Africa could get much larger- about 40 cm. Blocks of chevron-shaped muscled could propel the creatures at cruising speed, but didn't seem capable of producing bursts of rapid movement.

#4: Schinderhannes bartelsi
YAY! WEIRD SHRIMP! Or, to put it more correctly, Anomalocaridids, which were definitely not shrimp but shared some very superficial features with them. All Anomalocaridids are known from Cambrian rocks save one, this one, which is known from the Devonian of Germany. Compared to its ancestors, Schinderhannes was a sleek, streamlined creature, its many flapping pancake-like fins having been lost, leaving only a single pair of long, sharp fins used for propulsion and a much smaller pair at the tail for steering. About 10 cm long, it is slightly on the small side for Anomalocaridids, but it has not lost the great hunger for flesh that its ancestors were famed for. Stomach contents show that Schinderhannes was a predator, capturing its prey with its small but spiny "great appendages" at the front of its head, just in front of a doughtnut-shaped mouth ringed by pointy teeth. Its eyes were large and stalked, as were those of its kin, granting it good vision- A boon back when Anomalocaridids were some of the only creatures to have them, but in the devonian seas they were par for the course. Schinderhannes is my second favourite Anomalocaridid (Amplectobelua is my favourite) and thus I had to make the cute little weirdo purple, one of my favourite colours.

#5: Wiwaxia corrugata
What's this? A squishy who does not squish? Horrors! Hailing from the Burgess Shale in British Columbia, the same rock formation as Canadia, Wiwaxia was a golf-ball-sized bundle of spikes and scales. Clad in such armor, it feared nothing and made way for nobody. Like the Tully Monster, we know little about what, precisely, this odd little creature is. It has been suggested that it was a mollusc, an annelid, or its own phylum altogether. Wiwaxia started life a mere 4 mm long, already clad in armor but deprived of the swords sticking out of the back of its elder kin. I guess his parents were afraid he'd hurt himself. When junior reached 15 mm long he got his first set of swords. Wiwaxia grew by moulting, shedding the last covering of scales to reveal a new, more complicated set underneath, until they reached adult size at about 3 cm. Wiwaxia got around much like a slug, with contractions of a single slimy foot pushing against the seafloor. It ate by scraping algae or bacteria off the rocks with a raspy, flexible feeding apparatus. I think it would have been quite colourful, so I based its colours off the odd but gorgeous little Sea Sapphire, a kind of copepod.

*squishes a squishy*

Description
YAY SQUISHY THINGS

I love squishy things. I like to poke them. And I love dead things, especially if they were dead a loooooooooong time before I was born. So it's only natural that I should love dead, squishy things. That sounds surprisingly disturbing.

Clockwise from the top left:

#1: Tullimonstrum gregarium
The supersquishy Tully Monster is the biggest, squishiest thing in this drawing. Fossils are found in carboniferous rocks in Mazon Creek, Illinois, and quite frankly no one knows what to make of them. They are like nothing else on earth, though they bear very superficial resemblance to other squishy things like worms and Opabinia. They were long and sausage-shaped, with a segmented body and a fin-like structure on one end and something like a garden hose with teeth on the other. A pair of odd little appendages sprouted from underneath the head (the end closer to the garden hose) and were tipped with what were probably eyes. There were no bones or hard structures at all in its body and thus it is frequently preserved it odd contortions which serve to accentuate its squishiness. Big ones could get up to 35 cm long.

#2: Canadia spinosa
Much older and less enigmatic, Canadia (named after the country where it was found, and my homeland) is a small worm. Note the definitiveness with which I say worm. Specifically, an Annelid. Specifically, a Bristleworm. As opposed to an Earthworm or Leech. Yeah, compared to the Tully Monster we know tons about this critter. About 3 cm* long, it was tiny by today's standards of worminess (Some bobbit worms can grow to over 3 meters) but no less cool. A pair of antennae probably afforded it the sense of touch, and large, heavily bristle-ated notopodia probably were a defense against predators, much like today's Bearded Fireworm (whose colours and name inspired my worm's colours) and could easily have been iridescent, as evidenced by tiny striations on the individual bristles. It would have walked on the seabed with its neuropodis, located under the notopodia. Its gut was straight and could have been extended out of the body as a proboscis, much like other annelids. Imagine if you could extend your esophagus through your mouth to reach food halfway across the room. That would be weird.

*The same article also states that its length was up to 20 cm. Wikipedia, you are a miserable source (As if this wasn't already common knowledge.)

#3: Promissum pulchrum
Fie! For shame! What doeth thou here, enemy of the squishies? No vertebrate shall be permitted entry into the legions of squishiness. Begone!
Conodonts are an odd group of fish (not squishy) which are mostly known from their teeth, termed "conodont elements", which were the subject of much debate for years. People thought they were everything from naturally-grown crystals to the spicules of sponges to what they actually turned out to be, the tooth-like parts of primitive chordates. But even today, when we have fossils of entire animals, Conodonts are still wrapped in controversy. We know they were chordates, but what kind of chordate? Were they primitive craniates? Were they more derived vertebrates? We don't know, but it seems likely that they lie outside both vertebrata and craniata, as their odd little teeth seem to be the only hard parts of their body I know of save for a notochord. Thus we grant them their place in the kingdom of squishyness, albeit grudgingly. Harrumph.
The animals behind conodont teeth were very odd, resembling eels but with positively enormous eyes and no jaws. Many were miniscule, a single centimeter or so in length, but Promissum from South Africa could get much larger- about 40 cm. Blocks of chevron-shaped muscled could propel the creatures at cruising speed, but didn't seem capable of producing bursts of rapid movement.

#4: Schinderhannes bartelsi
YAY! WEIRD SHRIMP! Or, to put it more correctly, Anomalocaridids, which were definitely not shrimp but shared some very superficial features with them. All Anomalocaridids are known from Cambrian rocks save one, this one, which is known from the Devonian of Germany. Compared to its ancestors, Schinderhannes was a sleek, streamlined creature, its many flapping pancake-like fins having been lost, leaving only a single pair of long, sharp fins used for propulsion and a much smaller pair at the tail for steering. About 10 cm long, it is slightly on the small side for Anomalocaridids, but it has not lost the great hunger for flesh that its ancestors were famed for. Stomach contents show that Schinderhannes was a predator, capturing its prey with its small but spiny "great appendages" at the front of its head, just in front of a doughtnut-shaped mouth ringed by pointy teeth. Its eyes were large and stalked, as were those of its kin, granting it good vision- A boon back when Anomalocaridids were some of the only creatures to have them, but in the devonian seas they were par for the course. Schinderhannes is my second favourite Anomalocaridid (Amplectobelua is my favourite) and thus I had to make the cute little weirdo purple, one of my favourite colours.

#5: Wiwaxia corrugata
What's this? A squishy who does not squish? Horrors! Hailing from the Burgess Shale in British Columbia, the same rock formation as Canadia, Wiwaxia was a golf-ball-sized bundle of spikes and scales. Clad in such armor, it feared nothing and made way for nobody. Like the Tully Monster, we know little about what, precisely, this odd little creature is. It has been suggested that it was a mollusc, an annelid, or its own phylum altogether. Wiwaxia started life a mere 4 mm long, already clad in armor but deprived of the swords sticking out of the back of its elder kin. I guess his parents were afraid he'd hurt himself. When junior reached 15 mm long he got his first set of swords. Wiwaxia grew by moulting, shedding the last covering of scales to reveal a new, more complicated set underneath, until they reached adult size at about 3 cm. Wiwaxia got around much like a slug, with contractions of a single slimy foot pushing against the seafloor. It ate by scraping algae or bacteria off the rocks with a raspy, flexible feeding apparatus. I think it would have been quite colourful, so I based its colours off the odd but gorgeous little Sea Sapphire, a kind of copepod.

*squishes a squishy*