As life accumulated and diversified, so did death. Amongst the earliest organisms, eukaryotes would surround and consume smaller cells, enveloping them within their cell-wall. In the Cambrian period, when Anomalocaris found trilobites with its large bulbous eyes, the two serrated arm-like feelers in front of its mouth pulled the prey inward, constricting it in a vortex of razor sharp plates that continued into the walls of its gullet.
During the Ordivician period a Nautaloid Cephalopod known as Orthoceras, a meter-long squid-like creature with many tentacles and a long pointed shell protecting most of its body, was amongst the most fearsome creatures of the day. Its appearance may have led to the spiny armor that many varieties of trilobites adapted during this time.
At the end of the Ordivician period and the
beginning of the Silurian period global climate change led to a significant cooling of the earth's atmosphere, and the resulting mass-extinction destroyed sixty-percent of the world's existing bio-diversity. The Silurian period was also host to predatory arthopods such as the Eurypterids, known as the sea-scorpions. The animal was a six-foot ancestor of our modern insects. It would grasp and crush its quarry with its large fore-claws before consuming it.
In the Devonian period a hyper-carnivorous apex predator known as Dunkleosteus evolved amongst the world's first bony fish. Skeletons of the animal reveal a massive armor plated head with a beak-like mouth that could tear through the bodies of its prey with the force of 8000 psi.
The Carboniferous period saw further diversification as amphibians and early reptiles