Australian Scorpion Mud Lobster • Thalassina anomala • 5.0" long for Sale

Australian Scorpion Mud Lobster • Thalassina anomala • 5.0" long For Sale

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Australian Scorpion Mud Lobster • Thalassina anomala • 5.0" long:
$124.00

Thalassina anomala, known in the Indio-Pacific region of the world as the scorpion mud lobster, is an extant species of crustacean that are found residing in the mangroves and estuaries on the coast near Gunn Point in the Northwest Territory of Australia where they create and live in large mud mounds.
Lobsters are covered by an outer protective shell, called the exoskeleton. As lobsters grow the shell eventually becomes too small so they split it in half where the main body meets the tail and they then crawl out and grow a new shell. The process is called molting and the discarded shell is called a shed.
The fossil that you are looking at was a lobster shell that was cast off or "shed", and buried under the right conditions in the calcium rich mud of the mangrove beds thousands of years ago. It was preserved when the original shell was replaced by calcium carbonate, magnesium, strontium and iron to create a very hard and resilient marine fossil.
As an aside, no lobsters were harmed during the preservation of this specimen and if you do decide to add it to your collection you will be as happy as a dog with two tails. Thanks for the look.