Hurdia Pronunciation
Picture, name meaning, and how to say Hurdia. Free guide for kids and parents.
How to Pronounce Hurdia
HUR-dee-uh
ALL CAPS = stressed syllable
What does Hurdia mean?
Named after Hurd Peak, Canada
Name Roots
"Hurd"
from Hurd Peak in British Columbia, Canada, where early fossils were found; a place name turned into a scientific name
"-ia"
Latin suffix used to form genus names, meaning 'belonging to' or 'associated with'
Fun Facts
- ✓Hurdia's most bizarre feature is a giant three-part carapace on its head called the H-element, which could be larger than the rest of its body and is unique among all known animals, living or extinct.
- ✓Fossils of Hurdia have been found in the famous Burgess Shale of British Columbia, Canada, one of the world's most important fossil sites, where soft-bodied animals were preserved in extraordinary detail about 505 million years ago.
- ✓Hurdia belonged to a group called radiodonts, the same group as the legendary Anomalocaris, making it a distant cousin of what was once considered the apex predator of the Cambrian seas.
- ✓Hurdia victoria, the best-known species, was formally described in a 2009 paper in the journal Science by Allison Daley and colleagues, meaning it spent over a century hiding in museum collections before scientists realized what it really was.
- ✓Some Hurdia fossil pieces were originally misidentified as parts of completely different animals, including possible jellyfish or arthropod carapaces, before researchers figured out they all belonged to a single bizarre creature.
