Jakarta –
Scientists discover the first crab of the ages dinosaur well preserved in resin or gum. This crustacean named Cretapsara athanata is about 100 million years old and still in prime condition, with its gill anatomy still intact.
Because of its perfect wholeness, as quoted from IFL Science, Thursday (10/21/2021) this fossil is an extraordinary discovery that will provide some interesting insights that highlight how land crabs diverged from their previous ‘cousins’ who lived in the sea.
Crab gills are very delicate, so it is difficult to preserve for millions of years. However, in the latest research published in the journal Science Advances, it is known that the gills of the Cathnata fossil are in very good condition.
Their structure suggests that at their time, these crabs enjoyed an amphibian or water-dwelling lifestyle, allowing them to evolve from their land-dwelling ancestors.
This is interesting, because it will show that crab true species existed in freshwater habitats as early as the Late Cretaceous, much earlier than previously thought, and in turn closed a gap in the sparse fossil record of about 50 million years.
“Cretapsara athanata appears to represent the oldest non-marine crab on record, bridging the gap between the predicted molecular time of separation of non-marine crabs (130 million years ago) and their much younger fossil record (75-50 million years ago),” said study author Dr Javier Luque quoted from IFL Science.
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An artistic reconstruction of Cretapsara athanata. Illustration: Franz Anthony/Javier Luque/Harvard University– |
“It also tells us that true crabs have independently conquered non-marine habitats more than a dozen times since the mid-Cretaceous.”
Luque and his team are interested in studying the interesting mechanism behind carcination, the strange evolutionary phenomenon where so many things decided this animal turned into the crab it is today.
“We wanted to delve deeper into why things continued to evolve into crabs, to investigate their transition from marine to land and freshwater, and their evolution and diversification over time leading to the modern forms seen today,” explains Luque.
For that Luque and his team build a life lineage crab the most comprehensive, as part of a project funded by the National Science Foundation with a team from Florida International University and Harvard University.
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