Oldest aquatic animal gets fossilised in 100-million-year-old amber
Small crab trapped inside an amber
A crab, which was preserved in a 100-million-year-old amber and lived among dinosaurs, has beenrevealed by scientists to be the world's oldest known aquatic animal.
Previously, paleontologists have found tantalising details about the fossils that trap lizards, insects, spiders, and dinosaurs.
According to Javier Luque, a researcher in the Department of Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, ''The specimen is spectacular, it is one of a kind. It's absolutely complete and is not missing a single hair on the body, which is remarkable.''
The ancestor of the red crabs is being called the 'missing link' in evolution. The crustacean is officially called Cretapsara athanata as per the study published in the journal Science Advances.
Referring to its lifelike preservation, the term 'athanata' means immortal in Greek.
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Fossils lodged in amber have always fascinated scientists who are eager to find them intact.
Luque said that ''In a way, it’s like finding a shrimp in amber. Talk about the wrong place, wrong time. If we were to reconstruct the crabtree of life — putting together a genealogical family tree — and do some molecular DNA analysis, the prediction is that nonmarine crabs split from their marine ancestors more than 125 million years ago.''
It had a semi-aquatic lifestyle, that is, it neither dwelled on land or water. But it lived on the forest floor or freshwater, which is extremely rare.
During the dinosaur era, it made a leap from sea to land. Although non-marine crabs evolved 50 million years ago, this animal is twice that age which makes it uniques.