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Subject: Limulus polyphemus
Posted by: Pistoles Press

I am in the beginning stages of an edition of prints I'm thinking about calling "Limulus". It is going to be similar in lay out and size to a piece I wrote about a few months ago called "Archeopteris". Limulus polyphemus is the scientific name for the Horseshoe Crab. I was reading up on it for my design and one scientist's argument was that we should not refer to the animal as a Horseshoe Crab because it is not as closely related to the crab family as the name would let on. It is instead more closely related to spiders as it resides in the Arthopod family. My initial intention for creating this print was to honor the longevity of the Limulus. I knew it was an old animal and its physical appearance has remained virtually unchanged through the eons. What I did not know was that the oldest Limulus fossil found to date is roughly 445 million years old. That puts it in the middle of the Ordovician period which is the period directly following the Cambrian period. They have survived 5 major mass extinction events. I am amazed that the animals have persisted for so long. I was also researching distant cousins of the Limulus, the Trilobites. These guys arrived during the Cambrian and exploded into a . . . [Long item has been trimmed at this point. The full blog entry can be viewed here]

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