The Face of Hallucigenia sparsa

Hallucigenia sparsa is one of the more puzzling Cambrian organisms from the Burgess Shale of British Columbia. Its fossils have been interpreted in numerous ways. In particular, nobody was sure which end was the head.

But now paleontologists have trained an electron microscope on that wonderful specimen above, and what looks like the head turns out to have eyes and a mouth. Their reconstruction is above. What was once so mysterious as to acquire the name "scant hallucination" is now an animal, with a face.