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 1 month 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 1 month ago
mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month 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.
Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 1 month ago
their genome would look different if nothing else, different genes causing the same features.
i’d imagine there are all kinds of tiny tiny differences, like the shell changing shape and behaviours altering over time so they don’t get horribly confused as the earth changes shape.
Revan343@lemmy.ca 1 month ago
Basically that; I’d imagine their immune systems are more complex nowadays just because the threats are
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 1 month ago
also some of them got racing stripes
PrimeMinisterKeyes@leminal.space 1 month ago
And then, they went on to get rear spoilers… guns with silencers… blockchain…