Oldest fossil shrimp found in Oklahoma
Researchers at the Kent State University have discovered one of the oldest fossil shrimp known to date in the world, a study said.
The shrimp in stone, found in Oklahoma is as much as 360 million years old with its muscles preserved, the study by Rodney Rodney Feldmann, professor emeritus, and Carrie Schweitzer, associate professor, from Kent State University’s Department of Geology said. The study will be published in Journal of Crustacean Biology.
“The oldest known shrimp prior to this discovery came from Madagascar,” Feldmann said. “This one is way younger, having an age of ‘only’ 245 million years, making the shrimp from Oklahoma 125 million years older.”
The fossil shrimp has been named Aciculopoda mapesi, a paleontologist named Royal Mapes from Ohio University. It is three inches long and is one of the two oldest decapods or ten footed marine animals discovered so far. The other decapod, to which shrimp, crabs and lobsters belong, is Palaeopalaemon newberryi, found in in Ohio and Iowa. “The shrimp from Oklahoma might, thus, be the oldest decapod on earth,” Feldmann explained.
“When the animal died, it came to rest on the seafloor,” he said. “The muscles then were preserved by a combination of acidic waters and a low oxygen content as the animal was buried rapidly.”