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''Yawunik'' is an extinct genus of Cambrian megacheiran ("
''Yawunik'' had large size for megacheiran, up to long not including great appendage. It had four eyes, in the anteriormost position of the head, and lateral eyes are larger. ''Yawunik'' differs from other leanchoilid such as ''
Great appendage
Great appendages are claw-like appendages which attach to the heads of the "great appendage arthropods", a name usually refers to Megacheira, a class of extinct arthropod characterized by a pair of "short-great appendages" bearing in front of the ...
" arthropod
Arthropods (, (gen. ποδός)) are invertebrate animals with an exoskeleton, a segmented body, and paired jointed appendages. Arthropods form the phylum Arthropoda. They are distinguished by their jointed limbs and cuticle made of chiti ...
) known from the Burgess Shale
The Burgess Shale is a fossil-bearing deposit exposed in the Canadian Rockies of British Columbia, Canada. It is famous for the exceptional preservation of the soft parts of its fossils. At old (middle Cambrian), it is one of the earliest fo ...
in Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
(Marble Canyon
Marble Canyon is the section of the Colorado River canyon in northern Arizona from Lee's Ferry to the confluence with the Little Colorado River, which marks the beginning of the Grand Canyon.
Lee's Ferry is a common launching point for rive ...
locality). The type species has been named ''Yawunik kootenayi'' after the Kootenay, both a geographic area (and National Park, where the fossil was found) and North American First Nation
Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...
, also known as the Ktunaxa
The Kutenai ( ), also known as the Ktunaxa ( ; ), Ksanka ( ), Kootenay (in Canada) and Kootenai (in the United States), are an indigenous people of Canada and the United States. Kutenai bands live in southeastern British Columbia, northern ...
. Yawunik is the name of a primordial sea monster in Ktunaxa mythology. The fossil dates back to 508 million years ago.
Description
''Yawunik'' had large size for megacheiran, up to long not including great appendage. It had four eyes, in the anteriormost position of the head, and lateral eyes are larger. ''Yawunik'' differs from other leanchoilid such as ''Leanchoilia
''Leanchoilia'' is an megacheiran arthropod known from Cambrian deposits of the Burgess Shale in Canada and the Chengjiang biota of China. It was about long and had long, whip-like feelers mounted on frontal arm-like appendages. Its internal o ...
'' by having numerous teeth on great appendage, and probably it used great appendages to grasp prey.
References
Megacheira Burgess Shale animals Prehistoric arthropod genera Fossil taxa described in 2015 Cambrian arthropods {{paleo-arthropod-stub Cambrian genus extinctions