Hallucigenia

I like to imagine Hallucigenia, a tiny, um, thing-like prehistoric animal that scientists first found baffling fossils of in the 1970s, singing a jaunty personalized version of “We’re a Couple of Misfits” from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer as it went about its underwater day 505 million years ago during the Cambrian Explosion. Why am I such a misfit? I am not just a nit wit! I’m an adorable something Why don’t I fit in? I imagine this because I am much too prone to whimsy. But also because try as they might, scientists could not place this evolutionary weirdo anywhere that made sense with modern animal groups. But now Hallucigenia has found a home, and is a misfit no more. Scientists at the University of Cambridge have found a link between the ocean-dwelling Hallucigenia and modern velvet worms, a small group of animals that live in tropical rain forests. Hallucigenia was discovered in Burgess Shale in Canada’s Rocky Mountains and was so named because it looked weird and people did a