Hof (dpa/lby) – A type of crab has been living in the Lower Franconian Steigerwald for over 225 million years. The Bavarian State Office for the Environment (LfU) announced on Thursday that geologists have found that the so-called prehistoric crabs are virtually unchanged over a few square kilometers today as they were in the past.
Petrified crabs in old layers of sandstone had already been discovered in the Steigerwald in the last century. In the immediate vicinity, the crabs still live in ponds and rain puddles. According to the LfU, the living conditions for the approximately one and a half centimeter large animals must have been very stable. Paleontologists now want to investigate further whether the crabs are completely unchanged or whether they have undergone small internal changes.
According to the LfU, the colloquial term “taepod shrimp” refers to three types of gill shrimp, of which there are species that have changed little over millions of years: the turtle shrimp, the fairy shrimp and the shellfish.
