The horseshoe crab died slowly. Along the far wall of an obscure Bavarian museum, at the center of a giant slab of gray rock, the fossilized creature stands frozen, flawlessly sculpted by time. Mesolimulus walchi reads the tag, identifying the body. But look more closely. Pressed into the rough surface, a spiral of tracks encircles the crab, the creature's final moments spelled out in stone.
Footprints prove, however, that the horseshoe crab arrived at the lifeless bottom alive and kicking.
It survived long enough to make a few final, circling paces through the Jurassic mud before expiring at the spiral's center. Horseshoe crabs won't go gently, the ancient rock teaches. From fishermen to pharmaceutical companies to migratory birds, many hope the rock is right. The horseshoe crab is a survivor of a half billion years. The horseshoe crab persisted unchanged.