the body changed after death clipicarus and erkaicunia are the most similar invertebrates to urjakaris like i said the urjakaris research team nominated them as the closest known relative here's the catch if you take the bivalved armor of clippicarus and pull it apart a bit give it a little flare out you'll get a fossil that's visually indistinct from the hammer-headed urchicaris fossils so does that mean they are the same animal perhaps the bodies labeled urgicarus are just clippicarus bodies after a period of time after death perhaps they just decompose like that what might be the evidence to prove this suspicion a ton of clipicarus fossils preserved in somewhat of a similar fashion to the urjakerus of course are there yup look here's one labeled clivocaris it has its bivalves flared out in a similar but less obnoxious fashion to the urgicarus fossils if we take a look at the urgicarus fossils you notice that the body segments in the front half of the body are shortened compared to those in the last half of the body leading into the tail fin these shortened segments should tell you that they were distinct from the rest of the segments why would they be distinct like this if urgent harris just flopped its body up and down to swim coincidence i think not these shortened segments should indicate that this part of the body was covered in the bivalved armor that was squished outwards as the bodies fossilized turns out the angle at which the body falls onto the ocean bottom the time between death and burial the time between burial and fossilization and the angle of the body at the time of fossilization are all factors that change how the body looks once it's become a fossil this makes a whole bunch of weird variations of the typical penis-shaped bivalved fish shrimp how do we prove this ct scans unfortunately so until someone throws these fossils through a ct scanner we won't know for sure for more interesting stories about nature the history of life or what goes bump in the night subscribe hit the bell icon for updates like this video and drop a comment in the comment section below thanks for watching special thanks to my elephant tier patrons thea svensson staniforth hopkins dinosaur and arda bayer as well as my tyrannosaurus to your patrons henry brennan danny van heck dana manchester chris frampton and admin
START_INTERACTION_TOKEN for more interesting stories about nature the history of life or what goes bump in the night subscribe hit the bell icon for updates like this video and drop a comment in the comment section below thanks for watching special thanks to my elephant tier patrons thea svensson staniforth hopkins dinosaur and arda bayer as well as my tyrannosaurus to your patrons henry brennan danny van heck dana manchester chris frampton and END_INTERACTION_TOKEN