Similar to how humans and apes have a common ancestor, the horseshoe crabs would have an ancestor which looked very similar to today’s version, although slightly different, and some of them would have evolved into other things while some remained relatively unchanged.
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alcibiades@sh.itjust.works 19 hours agoApologies for ignorance, but what changed about them? Is it that they’ve been evolving over millions of years, which is why they can survive in today’s world (even though they look the same).
Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca 18 hours ago
mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 hours ago
Yeah, taxonomic classification always falls short of the natural world. It may be the same taxonomy, but that doesn’t mean they’re exactly the same.
Hell, if we only had dog fossils to work with, different breeds would almost certainly be considered entirely different species. But as it currently stands, they’re all the same species, (canis lupus familiaris), because we know the different breeds can mate with each other and produce viable offspring.
Revan343@lemmy.ca 17 hours ago
Basically that; I’d imagine their immune systems are more complex nowadays just because the threats are
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
also some of them got racing stripes
PrimeMinisterKeyes@leminal.space 3 hours ago
And then, they went on to get rear spoilers… guns with silencers… blockchain…