I'm a sucker for these things, especially since I'm going to be able to imagine thousands of people all around the world sticking their faces in their monitors and squinting. This is a computer reconstruction of a 425 million year old brachiopod—it's a sort of clam on a stalk (but definitely not a clam—it's from a whole 'nother phylum altogether). This specimen is special because it fortuitously preserved many of the soft parts of the animal, and then by taking serial thin slices through it and reassembling them on a computer, they made a 3-D model of it. Fun, huh?

Here's the real entertaining bit: the pictures on the left are stereo pairs. If you click on the image, you'll get a larger picture that will be easier to work with. Then all you have to do is get your face about 6 inches from the screen, defocus your eyes or look through the plane of the screen, and then mentally fuse the paired images. Voilà, you should see a multicolored three-dimensional extinct brachiopod floating in space in front of you. If you've always been frustrated by those "Magic Eye" books and can't fuse the pairs, well, your head will be in a perfect position to pound against your monitor.

a−c, e−i, k, OUM C.29586; holotype of Bethia serraticulma (a−c and e−i are 'virtual' reconstructions): ventral stereo pair (a); right lateral view (b); dorsal view (c); subanterior internal stereo pair, ventral valve removed (e); posterior view, pedicle and epifauna removed (f); dorsal stereo pair of internal of ventral valve, all structures removed except lophophore tentacles (g)—note that the removed 'internal mass' may incorporate hard-part structures, so the simple internal valve morphology may be an artefact; anterior view (h); posterior stereo pair of pedicle, skeletal debris removed (i); photograph before serial grinding (k). d, OUM C.29589; attached ?atrypide B1, 'virtual' reconstruction, dorsal stereo pair. j, ventral stereo-pair diagram of idealized lophophore of B. serraticulma, tentacle sparsity and length exaggerated for clarity, posterior up. Scale bars, 1 mm. Abbreviations: B1−B3, attached brachiopods OUM C.29589−29591, respectively; DI, dorsal interarea; DP, deltidial plates; DS, ?diductor muscle scars; DV, dorsal valve; E1 and E2, encrusting organisms OUM C.29592 and 29593, respectively; GL, growth lamellae; Lo, lophophore; LT, lophophore tentacle; Ma, mantle; P, pedicle; PR, pedicle rootlets; Pr, protegulum; RP, 'removed pedicle' (this region, obscured by the pedicle, is interpreted as an open delthyrium); Se, setae; SD, skeletal debris (to which B. serraticulma is attached); Su, sulcus; VI, ventral interarea; VL, visceral lobes; VV, ventral valve.

Isn't it pretty?

Sutton MD, Briggs DEG, Siveter DJ, Siveter DJ (2005) Silurian brachiopods with soft-tissue preservation. Nature 436:1013-1015.