Henry Gee

And what a menagerie they are.

They're lots of spiny-skinned animals of various sorts.

There are some famous ones like Hallucigenia.

Yes, what's this?

Hallucigenia was named after a friend of mine, Simon Conway-Morris from the University of Cambridge, who I don't think he'd mind me saying he's a bit of an old hippie.

He named it, and it says something in the paper on account of the strange and dreamlike appearance.

Hallucinogenic, okay.

Yeah.

Yes, so it's basically a worm with enormous spikes dipping out of its back.

And it's since been discovered that there are quite a lot of these.

They're called lobopods.

They're kind of closely related to arthropods, these armoured worms.

And there is a relic of those animals living today on land, the onychophores or velvet worms, which are strange little worms with Michelin-mounted stumpy legs that go around forest floors.

So there was that.

But there were a lot of sort of shrimpy-like things, but there was a big, big predator at the time.

Opabinia.

Opabinia.

It's very hard to describe what opabinia looks like.

If you've got small children, the closest thing is like the Nunu from the Teletubbies.

From the Teletubbies.