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Aegirocassis

Aegirocassis is an extinct genus of giant radiodont arthropod belonging to the family Hurdiidae that lived 480 million years ago during the early Ordovician in the Fezouata Formation of Morocco. It is known by a single species, Aegirocassis benmoulai. Van Roy initiated scientific study of the fossil, the earliest known of a "giant" filter-feeder discovered to date. Aegirocassis is considered to have evolved from early predatory radiodonts. This animal is characterized by its long, forward facing head sclerite, and the endites on its frontal appendages that bore copious amounts of baleen-like auxiliary spines. This animal evolving filter-feeding traits was most likely a result of the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event, when environmental changes caused a diversification of plankton, which in turn allowed for the evolution of new suspension feeding lifeforms. Alongside the closely related Pseudoangustidontus, an unnamed hurdiid from Wales, the middle Ordovician dinocaridid Mieridduryn, and the Devonian hurdiid Schinderhannes, this radiodont is one of the few dinocaridids known from post-Cambrian rocks.

Description
A. benmoulai was the largest known radiodont and the largest known animal that existed in this period, This discovery also found that other hurdiid radiodonts like Peytoia and Hurdia had a dorsal pair of flaps as well.|center == Discovery ==
Discovery
A fossil of A. benmoulai from the Fezouata biota, Morocco was discovered by and named after Mohamed Ben Moula, a fossil collector who recognized its rare characteristics and brought it to the notice of a professional paleontologist, Peter Van Roy, at the Ghent University in Belgium. == Phylogeny ==
Phylogeny
Phylogenetic position of Aegirocassis within Radiodonta and Hurdiidae, according to Moysiuk et al. (2025).}} |1=Mosura fentoni |2= }}}}}}}}}}}}}}|label1=Radiodonta}} == Notes ==
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