Parapeytoia
| Parapeytoia Temporal range: Cambrian
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Fossil
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| Genus: | Parapeytoia
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Parapeytoia yunnanensis | |
Parapeytoia was a prehistoric inverabrate that lived over 530 million years ago that lived in Maotianshan shales of prehistoric China. Like anomalocarids that it resembled (or possibly related to), Parapeytoia had 2 head appendages in front of the also anomalocarid like round mouth, eyes on stalks, and fleshy lobed ending with a fan tail. Parapeytoia had at least 14 pairs of lobes on the sides of the body.
Many scientist debate wether or not Parapeytoia was a true anomalocarid,or rather more closely related to Yohoia or Haikoucaris, because unlike anomalocarids such as Amplectobelua, it had legs. In total Parapeytoia had 13 pairs of legs, making Parapeytoia having 26 legs. The first to pairs of legs it had were almost twice as small as the other legs. But beacause it had legs it probably spent most of it's time on the ocean floor, hunting (or possibly scavenging) for prey.
The food for Parapeytoia probably included arthropods (including trilobites), worms, small fish, and other creatures found in the diversity of prehistoric China.