NEOVENATOR

Possibly the UK's biggest killer dinosaur. It once roamed the areas of Southern England around 120 million years ago, preying on the herds of Iguanodon and also, I would imagine, the numerous long necked sauropods that were around at this time. 

Name:

Meaning  -  "Star of the Sea". First found in 1909 it was the first fossil collected by Charles Doolittle Walcott who initially described it informally as a 'lace crab' or formally as an odd trilobite.

Diet:

Filter feeder: benthic (bottom feeder) scavenging on the detrital and particulate material using their long feathery gills.

Size:

Length - upto 2 cm long   

Geological Age:

Middle Cambrian (530  million years ago). 

Locomotion:

They would use their appendages to swim/drift/float along the Cambrian sea floors filter feeding food particles.

Bones:

Burgess Shale - Canadian Rockies of British Columbia, Canada where it is the most abundant fossil found.  Most Marrella specimens herald from the 'Marrella bed', a thin horizon, but it is also common in most other outcrops of the shale. Over 25,000 specimens have been collected.  

Classification:

• Kingdom Animalia (animals)
• Stem Group: Arthropoda
• Class Marrellomorpha
• Order Marrellida
• Family Marrellidae
• Genus Marella 
• Species M. Splendens (Walcott 1912)

REPLICA Fossil Information:

This is a replica of a near complete fossil specimen - this is a recreation as the actual fossils measure around 2 cm long. This specimen measures aprox 7 cm long sitting upon some matrix measuring 15 x 9 cm. There are 2 states of preservation options here - in black or with a white pyrite stain - please advise when paying otherwise a black example will be sent.