The Burgess Shale

       The Burgess Shale is a fossil field located in the Canadian Rockies of British Columbia. The dig site is entirely black shale and many incredible finds have occurred at this world-renowned fossil field. This fossil field is estimated to be about 505 million years old and was just discovered in 1886 by Charles Doolittle Walcott. One impressive find from the Burgess Shale fossil field is the Opabinia. Fewer than 20 specimens of this species have ever been discovered. The Opabinia is a soft bodied animal of modest size, whose segmented body has lobes along the side and a fan-shaped tail. The head has unusual features, containing five eyes, a mouth underneath the head pointing backwards and a proboscis, which is in essence a straw-like appendage used to pass food to the mouth. The Opabinia was thought to be a creature of a completely separate phylum when it was first discovered. Being only between four to seven centimeters in length, the body was typically divided into about 15 segments. These animals were assumed to live on the surface of the seafloor and had gills inside each of the segments. Animals like the Opabania make it clear how little we all know about the past of our planet and how exciting it is to uncover new mysteries.