Named By: | Walcott in 1911 |
Time Period: | Early Cambrian |
Location: | Canada |
Size: | Uncertain |
Diet: | Carnivore |
Fossil(s): | Many specimens |
Classification: | | Arthropoda | Radiodonta | Anomalocarididae | |
Peytoia is a genus of anomalocarids that lived in the Cambrian period, containing two species, Peytoia nathorsti and Peytoia infercambriensis. Its two mouth appendages had long bristle-like spines, it had no fan tail, and its short stalked eyes were behind its mouth appendages.
Paleontologists have determined that these attributes disqualify Peytoia from apex predator status (as opposed to Anomalocaris), to the extent that it used its appendages to filter water and sediment on the sea floor to find food.
108 specimens of Peytoia are known from the Greater Phyllopod bed, where they comprise 0.21% of the community.