The Popular Shrimp

In case anyone did not realize how popular Anomalocaris is, after all of the documentaries (minor and major) and different books, texts, robots, and multiple illustrations and photos of the Cambrian's largest predator, here is a picture I took Monday afternoon at Michael's, a hobby and craft store:

Though the eyes were not colored in like compound eyes, we can see that they do still feature prominently on this version of Anomalocaris. Toys are not the ultimate models of fossil animals, though this toy Anomalocaris does look a lot like a number of the good museum models that exist across the world. As an example, here are models from the National Dinosaur Museum in Canberra, Australia (left) and the Houston Museum of Natural Science (right).

Photo by Yinan Chen; CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0)

Photo by Photnart; CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0)

Perhaps, however, the ultimate popular culture manifestation of the admiration and love of Anomalocaris might just be this plush version of our favorite ocean going arthropod. I have to say that it honestly looks a little bit more fluffy and adorable than it does frightening and carnivorous.