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| orthocone |
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| 460 million years ago, the biggest animal on Earth was a
jet-propelled cone with tentacles.
Type: Cephalopod mollusk
Size: Up to 11m long
Diet: Carnivore
Predators: Giant orthocone was the top predator of its time
Lived: Late Ordovician and early Silurian, 470-440 million years
ago.
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| The giant orthocone's living tissue was at one end of a very long
conical shell. It had no fins and no tail. Along the underside of the
cone ran a flexible, fleshy tube. The orthocone moved along by forcing
water out in the opposite direction to where it wanted to go. It
controlled its vertical position by adjusting the amount of seawater in
the chambers of its shell. Its mouth and meter-long tentacles emerged
from one end of the shell. It ate fish as well as arthropods, eg sea
scorpions. It seized its prey using its tentacles and beak-like mouth to
rip apart.
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