Horseshoe crabs are a type of marine animal. Horseshoe is a type of crab found in Indonesia. This animal fossil has a distinctive and unique feature.
Marine crab animals often become seafood. Its sweet flesh pleases many people.
The crab is also made up of various types, one of which is famous for its horseshoe, which is also quite widespread in Indonesia.
Deceased paleontologists have just found evidence of a new species of crab.
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Experts discover new species of horseshoe crab
Who doesn’t know crabs? This animal lives mainly in water and likes to hide in sand or rocks.
The crab has a unique feature of its body shape because it has a large shell and claws. This animal is also popular as a meal due to its delicious taste.
Horseshoe is one of the popular types of crab. Who would have thought that paleontologists have just found evidence of the existence of a new species of this Ordovician horseshoe.
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Lived about 445 million years ago
The fossil record also shows that a new horseshoe species lived about 445 million years ago. The crabs lived in what is now Canada.
The report on the discovery of evidence of this new species was published in Geological Magazine, an open access journal entitled “A New Species of the Ordovician’s Horseshoe Crab Lunataspis”.
Horseshoe or xiphosaurs is ordo arthropods sea and brackish water. Although commonly called crabs, they are actually closer to spiders and scorpions.
Their diversity is quite low, only 76 species have been detected to date during the 445 million years of evolutionary history.
Although rare, the four horseshoe crab species that still exist today are well known as important biomes for vaccine production.
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Name of the new species
Experts have called this new crab species as Boreal lunataspis. This is because it has a diagnostic trait of gens Lunataspis, including the large crescent carapace.
This discovery shows that there are several species Lunataspis inhabited the shallow seas of Laurentia during the Late Ordovician.
The three specimens Boreal lunataspis identified by the formation of the Gull River, exposed on the north face of an inactive mine in the Kingston region, Ontario, Canada.
The holotypic specimens were adult individuals with mostly complete bodies, while the two parapes were juveniles who retained the prosoma and thoracetrone along with the post-abdominal portion.
Discovery Boreal lunataspis this helps to provide a critical view of their ontogenesis and morphology as soon as possible.
With the latest fossilized horseshoe crab species, the researchers were able to determine that the shape of their Paleozoic species had a tergit (tergum segment) that freely articulated anterior to a fused thoracetrone (shell), as well as an opisthosome of 13 segments. (R10 / HR-Online)
