Invertebrate
Opabinia regalis
It had five eyes and a long trunk ending in a prehensile structure.
Five eyes and a front appendage ending in a pincer gave Opabinia an unmistakable head.
Three stages. One companion.
Game artwork
AI-generated, stylized game illustrations. These designs and growth stages are imaginative, not scientific reconstructions.
Opabinia regalis at a glance
- Diet
- Small food items from the seafloor
- Its body shape and mouth structures allow researchers to propose how it fed, but its exact diet remains unresolved.
- When it lived
- Cambrian
- Group
- Opabiniidae
- Opabiniids
- Fossil locations
- British Columbia
- Places where fossils have been found
Beyond the game
The real Opabinia regalis
This small marine animal reached about seven centimeters long. Its long front appendage is called a proboscis. It is thought to have brought small prey or soft food to the mouth, though no fossil preserves the movement itself.
Its modest size contrasts with how strange its anatomy is. To understand the variety of prehistoric life, it is not necessary to look only for giants: an animal that could fit in one hand can show a very different body design from that of the more familiar marine inhabitants.
This grouping describes evolutionary relationships. Its members share ancestors; they do not form a chain in which one must turn into another.
Fossil discoveries
Selected fossil records · present-day map
Map references
Map: Natural Earth, public domain. Fossil records: linked collections and publications.Sources & text credits
Explore the references behind this profile.
- Opabinia
Wikipedia contributors · Spanish source
Educational text adapted and translated from this article by Wikipedia contributors. The revision link, when captured in the source catalogue, identifies the source version.
- Opabinia
Wikipedia contributors · English source
Educational text adapted and translated from this article by Wikipedia contributors. The revision link, when captured in the source catalogue, identifies the source version.
- Opabiniidae
Wikipedia contributors · English source
Educational text adapted and translated from this article by Wikipedia contributors. The revision link, when captured in the source catalogue, identifies the source version.
- The arthropod lineage
Wikipedia contributors · English source
Educational text adapted and translated from this article by Wikipedia contributors. The revision link, when captured in the source catalogue, identifies the source version.
Educational text adapted in English from the existing Wikipedia-backed Dinosgacha catalogue and linked articles by Wikipedia contributors.
Existing English translations have been selected and arranged for this encyclopedia. Repeated period and diet text is omitted where those fields already carry it. Unknown facts remain unfilled; unreviewed geological age phrases are omitted and period labels replace numerical ages.
The adapted educational text is available under CC BY-SA 4.0. This text license does not apply to the game illustrations.