The way in which the Burgess Shale animals were buried, by a mudslide or a sediment-laden current that acted as a sandstorm, suggests they lived on the surface of the seafloor.[1] Opabinia probably used its proboscis to search the sediment for food particles and pass them to its mouth.[2] Since there is no sign of anything that might function as jaws, its food was presumably small and soft.[2] The paired gut diverticula may increase the efficiency of food digestion and intake of nutrition.[2] Whittington (1975) believing that Opabinia had no legs, thought that it crawled on its lobes and that it could also have swum slowly by flapping the lobes, especially if it timed the movements to create a wave with the metachoral movement of its lobes.[2] On the other hand, he thought the body was not flexible enough to allow fish-like undulations of the whole body.[2]