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Crab Larva

Material used: Shale harvested from Montnegre near Girona Spain

Metamorphosis has intrigued humans at least since Ovid’s famous work on the subject. Biologically, metamorphosis like so much else biological, is the result of random hybridizations of disparate creatures in the race to make diversity at any cost. Consequently, it is full of redundancies, spangles, and work-arounds. The Zoea stage of a crab larva is one of several strange metamorphic developmental stages of the complex life cycle of the humble crab. This little larva is autonomous in lifestyle and complex in construction, dispersing the species into and different marine habitats. They have been evolving for 200 million years.