1.25" Cretaceous Armored Crab (Corazzatocarcinus) - Pos/Neg

Cretaceous Armored Crab (Corazzatocarcinus) - Pos/Neg #202121

This is a 1.25" wide example of a rare armored crab (Corazzatocarcinus hadjoulae) that was collected from the Upper Cretaceous Lebanese lagerstätten near Hjoula. It gets its name from the Italian word corazatto meaning armored, in reference to the ornamentation on the carapace.

This fossil was split perfectly, resulting in this positive/negative display, both halves of which are included with your purchase. Each half includes an acrylic display stand.

The discovery of amazingly preserved marine fossils near Hjoula, Lebanon dates back many centuries. In fact, they were first mentioned in writing by Herodotus, over 450 years before the birth of Christ. The first scientific work on these localities began in the 1800s: these deposits have been meticulously quarried by several Lebanese families for over a century. We purchase our specimens directly from one of these families.

These deposits represent a warm, shallow sea of the Middle Cretaceous, and have yielded over 70 types of fish and numerous other genera found nowhere else in the world. The preservation on many of these specimens is truly amazing: many examples of soft bodied preservation have been found.

A photo of one of the quarries at Hjoula, Lebanon