Top Quality 5.1" Horseshoe Crab (Mesolimulus) Fossil

This is a rare and high quality specimen specimen from the famous Solnhofen Lagerstätte in Germany. It's a remarkably detailed 5,1" long, 155 million year old Horseshoe Crab (Mesolimulus walchi). It's preserved ventrally on a 14x11" slab of matrix and shows much MUCH BETTER DETAIL than the vast majority of specimens. Mesolimulus is a rare find as it is, but to get one with this level of preservation is very rare.

There is a repaired crack running through the matrix but it doesn't detract from the specimen. We can cut the matrix down to a custom size upon request for no charge, this may also reduce the shipping cost.

Mesolimulus is an extinct genus of arthropod. The best known examples are found in Solnhofen limestone near Solnhofen, Bavaria, Germany. Originally assigned to the living genus Limulus, they are related to and look virtually identical to the modern horseshoe crab. Other species assigned to Mesolimulus have been recorded from Spain, Siberia and (questionably) from Lebanon. Horseshoe crabs in general date to the Ordovician Period, more than 440 million years ago, and late Paleozoic Euproops fossils indicate that they have changed little over the last 300 million years.

The Solnhofen limestones is a famous Lagerstätte in Germany that offer amazing preservation of Upper Jurassic fossils. It is where on of the most famous fossils of all time, Archaeopteryx was found. The fine grained limestone makes excellent building materials which has let to heavy quarrying over the past two centuries which as a result has led to some amazing fossils being unearthed.

This area represented an archipelago at the edge of a sea. Due to high salt content, the lowest levels in the water column could not support much life and was devoid of oxygen. This lack of scavengers on the bottom of the sea led to amazing preservation of the fauna found there.