Hallucigenia

The Burgess Shale is a famous fossil site in the Canadian Rockies. About 505 million years ago, unusual geological conditions caused many soft-bodied Cambrian creatures to remain well preserved up to the early twentieth century when they were discovered by paleontologist Charles Walcott.

The organisms were remarkable in that many seemed to defy classification. One of these was a worm-like creature which was given the name of Hallucigenia, meaning dreamlike. There was an initial confusion over the animal's spatial orientation. Did the strange spikes point up for protection or did it walk on them like stilts? Later finds showed that it walked on the soft tentacles with the rigid spikes pointing up, but it has proved difficult to sculpt that way. There was also a controversy about Hallucigenia's relationship to modern animals. It has been placed in the phylum Onchyphora, in which it joins obscure modern creatures called velvet worms.

Remains of lunch: White Bean and Roasted Garlic Soup and three upside down Hallucigenia.

Hallucigenia as a stilt walker. Not true-to-life, but easier to express in clay.
Hallucigenia as it probably lived. Unfortunately it collapsed every time I tried to render it that way.

Hallucigenia smiling.

Fossil of Hallucigenia.