(Image credit: Oksana Vernygora/University of Alberta)Here is an illustration of Callichimaera perplexa, quite possibly the strangest looking crab that ever lived.
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(Image credit: Daniel Ocampo R., Vencejo Films)Yale paleontologist Javier Luque found C. perplexa in Colombia in 2005. Since then, C. perplexa specimens have also turned up in Wyoming and Morocco.
(Image credit: Daniel Ocampo R., Vencejo Films)C. perplexa lived during the last dinosaur age, the Cretaceous period, about 95 million years ago.
(Image credit: Photos: Arthur Anker and Javier Luque/Figure: Javier Luque, Yale University)Crabs come in many shapes and sizes. But C. perplexa (center) might be the strangest of all of them. It has giant baby-like eyes, a lobster-like shell, the claws of a frog crab and paddles like an ancient sea scorpion.
(Image credit: Daniel Ocampo R., Vencejo Films)Paleontologist Javier Luque searches for fossil crabs in the Colombian Andes.
(Image credit: Daniel Ocampo R., Vencejo Films)This extinct crab is a chimera, meaning it combines traits from several extinct and living crabs and crustaceans.
(Image credit: Felipe Villegas/Humboldt Institute)Luque (left) and Catalina Suarez, with the Colombian Geological Survey (center) dig for fossils in the Colombian Andes.
[Read more about the strange crab]