Scientists discover 95M-year-old crab

摘要

The discovery of a cartoonishly cute 95-million-year-old crab, which researchers have compared to an ancientplatypus, may change the way most people think about crabs.The quarter-sized creature, which boasts a wide range of unique features, is called Callichimaera perplexa,which means perplexing beautiful chimera. It was named for the mythological Greek creature made up of severaldifferent animal parts, as well as the difficulties it gave researchers."It was a nightmare for us," said Yale University paleontologist Javier Luque, who led the international team thatpublished research on the crab Wednesday in Science Advances. He described his team as "CSI detectives,"trying to determine the cause and purpose for the creature's different features.