100-million-year old crab trapped in amber rewrites ancient crustacean history - CNET
The tiny crab, Cretapsara athanata, was discovered in Myanmar.During the Cretaceous period some 100 million years ago, a tiny crustacean crawled out from its marine home and climbed a tree.While it's common to see crabs climbing trees today, the fossil record indicated their ancestors started to crawl out of the water about 75 to 50 million years ago. .
DNA analysis suggested that, perhaps, land-based crabs may have diverged from their ancestors some 125 million years ago.Following a military coup by the Tatmadaw in Myanmar in early 2021, the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology drafted an open letter calling for a moratorium on studies of Myanmar amber specimens obtained after January 2021 but note the Tatmadaw had taken control of the mines back in 2017.