Three-eyed predator stalked the seas 500 million years ago Stanleycaris hirpex, which lived in the Cambrian period, had two protruding eyes on the side of its head and a larger eye in the centre A three-eyed animal with wing-like fins once swam through shallow seas, using heightened visual perception to hunt smaller sea animals. Stanleycaris hirpex lived in the Cambrian Period about 500 million years ago, not long after the first eyes appeared in the fossil record. It is the first animal with three eyes known among the arthropods, the group containing insects, arachnids and crustaceans, but the researchers who described it think there may be others in which a third eye has been overlooked. S. hirpex was roughly the size of a human hand and had two protruding eyes with hundreds of lenses on each side of its head, plus a third, much larger eye in the middle. Living among finger-sized animals, it probably used its advanced visual system to chase down fast-moving prey, says Joseph Moys
Post: 8 July 18:24
