Environment

360 Million Year Old Shrimp

by greg1usa | November 9, 2010 at 06:09 pm

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Researchers at Ohio's Kent State University’s Department of Geology have reported, a shrimp fossil found in Oklahoma is 360 million years old.

Rodney Feldmann, professor emeritus, and Carrie Schweitzer, associate professor, from Kent State University’s Department of Geology issued a report on November 6th about the shrimp fossil saying even the muscles and tail of the fossil are preserved which is remarkable.

Their study will be published in Journal of Crustacean Biology.

“The oldest known shrimp prior to this discovery came from Madagascar,” Feldmann said. “This one is way younger, having an age of ‘only’ 245 million years, making the shrimp from Oklahoma 125 million years older.”

The fossilized shrimp, measuring around 3 inches in length, was found by fellow paleontologist Royal Mapes of Ohio University and his students.

Feldmann and Schweitzer named the fossil after him: Aciculopoda mapesi.

The discovery is also one of the two oldest decapods (‘ten footed’) to which shrimp, crabs and lobsters belong.

The other decapod, Palaeopalaemon newberryi, is of similar age and was found in Ohio and Iowa. “The shrimp from Oklahoma might, thus, be the oldest decapod on earth,” Feldmann explained.

For more information visit Kent State’s Department of Geology, www.kent.edu/geology.