Fossil horseshoe crab’s brain
It was “a one-in-a-million find, if not rarer,” said evolutionary paleontologist Russell Bicknell of the University of New England in Armidale, Australia. Bicknell was referring to the three-dimensionally fossilized brain of an extinct species of horseshoe crab, Euproops danae.
Reports were quick to add, “For many animals, including the crabs, fossils of their soft tissues are extremely uncommon because the tissues tend to degrade far quicker than fossilization can occur.”
Since the central nervous system was exceptionally well preserved, it allowed for detailed scans and examination. The research team found that despite the alleged age of the fossil being over 300 million years, the organization of the central nervous system in horseshoe crabs has remained essentially unchanged. This is despite the fact that in the evolutionary framework, there would have been major changes to their environment (which includes other creatures including predators) in all that supposed time.
This highlights another example of ‘evolutionary stasis’, i.e. when the supposed evolutionary process, of consistent information-adding mutations, has not been acting for vast time periods. It is also evidence of a rapid fossilization process, before the delicate tissues of the brain had time to deteriorate.
In envisaging the geological conditions required for this, it is easy to see them as present at different times and locations during Noah’s Flood around 4,500 years ago. During the deluge, huge layers of mineral-laden sediment of various types were rapidly deposited, engulfing animals such as the horseshoe crab.
- Bicknell, R. and 4 others, Central nervous system of a 310-m.y.-old horseshoe crab, Geology 49(11):1381–1385, 2021.
- Dzombak, R., How fossilization preserved a 310-million-year-old horseshoe crab’s brain; sciencenews.org, 20 Aug 2021.
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