Ancient ecosystems organized much like our own

In this depiction of the food web of the Burgess Shale from the Middle Cambrian, spheres represent species or groups of species, and the links between them show feeding relationships. The drawing shows a top predator, Anomalocaris, chasing one of its likely prey species, the trilobite Olenoides, with arrows indicating their positions in the food web. Many aspects of the structure of this ancient ecological network are similar to the architecture of modern food webs. Credit: Image: N. D. Martinez. Food web produced with Network3D software written by R. J. Williams Drawings courtesy of Sam Gon III, www.trilobites.info.