What was the First Apex Predator?
An apex predator is a predator at the top of the food chain. An apex predator has no other predators, except for perhaps other members of its own species. Apex predators have been around for a long time, but not forever. Although there is some cursory evidence of limited predation during the Ediacaran period, about 570 million years ago, modern predation did not begin until the Cambrian period, about 542 million years ago. During this period, animals evolved hard shells and other signs of defense against predation. Obvious predators begin to appear in the fossil record. The first known apex predator was the very odd invertebrate, Anomalocaris (meaning “anomalous shrimp”). For the time in which it lived, when most organisms were no more than a few inches in length, Anomalocaris was huge, ranging up to a meter (3.3 ft) in size. Anomalocaris had a large head, with two eyes on stalks, and two barbed feeding “arms” in front of its mouth which were 7 inches in length when fully extended. Its
