It's a horseshoe! Ancient creatures dating back 200 million years have been found in Gaotai farmland
Gansu Daily, July 7 (Correspondent Duan Hai Chen Da Reporter Cao Yong) Recently, a villager in Yuanxing Village, Laneway Town, Gaotai County, discovered a strange creature, like a tadpole, but not like a tadpole; like a fish, but not a fish. After the experts identified it on the spot, they were surprised to find that it was an ancient creature - the hòu worm.
"Horseshoe crabs appeared in the Permian about 200 million years ago, much older than dinosaurs." Qin Yong, senior engineer of the Gansu Fishery Technology Extension Station, said. The reporter saw that a puddle in the farmland of He Jianxin's family was densely packed with this strange creature. Each horseshoe crab is about three or four centimeters long, has a large shell on the head, and has tentacles like a fish's whiskers, and its body slowly becomes thinner, and its abdomen is red, and the upper parts are almost all antennae, but the end is forked, much like a cricket. Overall, it looks like a combination of shrimp, tadpoles and crickets. Qin Yong said: "The horseshoe crab is also known as the three-eyed dinosaur shrimp because it has three eyes, black compound eyes on both sides, and a white light-sensitive eye in the middle. Dinosaur shrimp are not extinct because they have passed through the dinosaur period, and the name is derived from this, and it is now very rare. Qin Yong said that the horseshoe is an ancient large gill-footed crustacean that inhabits intermittent waters with good water quality and is regarded as the oldest creature on earth, known as "living fossils". Most of them appear in wetlands, depressions, and waterholes, which are non-toxic and harmless, do not bite people, and can also remove weeds from the field.