To understand where climate change is heading, we have to look at the planet’s distant past and appreciate the disturbing uniqueness of our situation, says Bill McGuire
sponges and cnidarians beat them to it, 500-600million years. and jellyfish have been exploding in numbers all over due to temperature rises, generally more tolerant to pollution than fishes, and lack of too many predators.
Those aren’t quite as specified as horseshoe crabs though (which are a taxonomic family, just above genus and species respectively). Sponges and jellyfish are both much more varied and encompass more than one class.
Similarly I can say that Reptiles beat horseshoe crabs since they’ve been around at least ~50 million years longer than the latter, but that wouldn’t really be a fair comparison because they encompass far more species than just horseshoe crabs. Regarding lasting a long time evolutionarily while staying relatively undiversified, horseshoe crabs are still uniquely notable. They aren’t called living fossils for nothing.
sponges and cnidarians beat them to it, 500-600million years. and jellyfish have been exploding in numbers all over due to temperature rises, generally more tolerant to pollution than fishes, and lack of too many predators.
Those aren’t quite as specified as horseshoe crabs though (which are a taxonomic family, just above genus and species respectively). Sponges and jellyfish are both much more varied and encompass more than one class.
Similarly I can say that Reptiles beat horseshoe crabs since they’ve been around at least ~50 million years longer than the latter, but that wouldn’t really be a fair comparison because they encompass far more species than just horseshoe crabs. Regarding lasting a long time evolutionarily while staying relatively undiversified, horseshoe crabs are still uniquely notable. They aren’t called living fossils for nothing.