The Platypus of The Seas Is Found

Callichimaera perplexa. Image courtesy of Oksana Vernygora/ University of Alberta.





Joel Kontinen

It’s been called the platypus of the crab world .

The researchers found “It had the mouth of a shrimp, the claws of a modern frog crab, the shell of a lobster and the paddle-like appendages of a sea scorpion.”

Lead researcher Javier Luque, who now work for Yale University and the University of Alberta in Canada, found the first specimen in 2005 in the Colombian Andes Mountains. He thinks that the crab recounts that the "true crabs" lost and reevolved their body plans many times throughout history."

This amount to Darwinian storytelling.

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Source: Geggel, Laura. 2019. 'Beautiful Nightmare' Crab Sported Lobster Shell, Shrimp Mouth and Soccer Ball Eyes. Live Science (24 April).