Before this discovery, scientists faced a conundrum: the known fossil record, consisting of just a few claws and carapaces, showed that crabs that lived on land and in fresh water split from their marine relatives between 50 to 75 million years ago.
"In a way, it's like finding a shrimp in amber," said Luque in a press release, "Talk about wrong place, wrong time."
The amber, dated to the dinosaur era, or 100 million years ago, bridges the gap between the two previously-known family splits and is, to this date, the oldest example of a "true crab" venturing onto land and the most complete fossil crab ever discovered, and indicates that crabs became terrestrial or amphibious around that time, much earlier than previously thought.
True crabs, or the traditional crab, are contrasted with "false crabs" like hermit crabs or king crabs
The discovery of the crab has led the researchers to believe that a type of event called the Cretaceous Crab Revolution, when both true and false crabs diversify worldwide, happened at least 12 separate times.
"It seems like evolution loves making crabs," Luque explained
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