Monday, February 23, 2015

Dino-Crab - Megaxantho

Recently, paleontologists discovered the fossil of an especially giant-clawed crab of the aptly named Megaxantho family, which lived during the late Cretaceous period alongside the last of the dinosaurs. What's interesting about this crab,besides its enormous size, is the prominent tooth-shaped structure on its giant claw, which it used to pry prehistoric snails out of their shells. Also, this species of Megaxantho lived 20 million years earlier than paleontologists had previously thought, which may prompt some rewriting of the "crustaceans" section of biology textbooks. I think this crab is really cool. It is huge and had a giant body. The crab probably ate a lot. Mainly snails.

No comments:

Post a Comment