How many of you think shoggoth when you read the headline below?

Researchers find new creature with 16,000 eyes

A team of scientists have discovered a strange new creature that reportedly had 16,000 eyes when it lived during the age of the dinosaurs.

Working on Kangaroo Island in South Australia, the team of scientists announced the discovery, saying they have turned up a Cambrian predator with 16,000 eyes. Anomalocaris is one of the weirdest and fiercest creatures from the Cambrian period, when multicellular life first evolved over 600 million years ago. The animals were about a meter long, and shaped as a flattened oval, a bit like a modern flounder.

I did. But then I play a Lovecraftian role-playing game each week. :)

Here's a more in-depth look at the creature, including an artist's rendition, from Discover magazine:

The sharp eyes of Anomalocaris, a top predator that lived half a billion years ago

Before killer whales and polar bears, before sharks and tyrannosaurs, the world’s top predator was probably a bizarre animal called Anomalocaris. It lived in the Cambrian period, over half a billion years ago, when life was confined to the seas and animals took on bizarre shapes that haven’t been seen since.