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Description: | Specimen of a fossil crustacean (shrimp), Beletelson magister, collected from unspecified rocks of Carboniferous (?) age.
This specimen shows the outline of a shrimp's soft shell, which is made out of chitin, a material similar to finger nails. The head is on the right, the thorax (upper body) with legs in the centre and the abdomen to the left. Such shrimps lived in fresh and salt water and were probably scavengers that fed on organic debris found on lake and sea floors. Chemicals that formed when the shrimp died may have helped form the nodule (lump) in which it is preserved.
It is from the Carboniferous period (362 - 290 million years ago) | Publisher: | Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums | Subjects: | Classification: Animalia Invertebrata Crustacea Arthropoda | Temporal: | Carboniferous period (362 - 290 million years ago) | Source: | Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums | Identifier: | http://www.twmuseums.org.uk/geofinder/se... | Go to resource |
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