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A comment on Massive animal species discovered in half-billion-year-old Burgess Shale. Parent comment

Re:Massive animal species discovered in half-billion-year-ol... by Hayarotle on Wednesday September 08, 2021 @08:56PM (#28464968)
It is "mind-boggling" compared to the size of similar animals at the time. Half a meter might sound short, but I'd say it would be mind-boggling to find a half-meter long ant, spider or bee in a forest, for example. Not so big compared to all animals that ever existed, but massive compared to similar animals at the time.
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Re:Massive animal species discovered in half-billion-year-ol... by IncRnd on Thursday September 09, 2021 @12:12AM (#28466121)
No, it was not mind-boggling. Read the first two sentences of the very next paragraph.

"Evolutionarily speaking, Titanokorys belongs to a group of primitive arthropods called radiodonts. The most iconic representative of this group is the streamlined predator Anomalocaris, which may itself have approached a metre in length."

If the most iconic representative of a group is twice the size of this new discovery, the size of the new discovery is not "mind boggling" or "massive".

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Re:Massive animal species discovered in half-billion-year-ol... by dotancohen on Thursday September 09, 2021 @01:57AM (#28466757)
Arguably the two most iconic dinosaurs, T. Rex and the Brontosaurus family, are far larger and more aggressive than the rest of the group. Iconic does not imply representative.

Though I do agree that this creature wouldn't seem mind-boggling to those only familiar with the period's "iconic" species, in fact this creature would be mind-boggling to the vast majority of creatures alive at the time.

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Re:Massive animal species discovered in half-billion-year-ol... by masklinn on Thursday September 09, 2021 @01:55AM (#28466746)
And one of the previous members of the order, Aegirocassis, is estimated to have reached two meters.
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