Image #240807

From the interpretive panel at the Orlando Science Center:

Horseshoe Crab
Mesolimulus walchi
Solnhofen, Germany
Late Jurassic: 150 million years ago

Because this group has undergone little change from their first appearance in Jurassic seas, today’s horseshoe crabs are considered living fossils.

This specimen’s lineage can be traced back to Cambrian times, 600 million years ago, and now horseshoe crabs are considered to be the closest living relative to the long extinct trilobite.