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[-] sylveon@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 11 hours ago

That’s not how evolution works. Today’s horseshoe crabs may look very similar to their ancestors hundreds of millions of years ago, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t evolve. I know it’s just a meme and not that serious, but misconceptions about evolution seem to be very common and I think that’s a shame.

[-] alcibiades@sh.itjust.works 2 points 10 hours ago

Apologies 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).

[-] Revan343@lemmy.ca 5 points 8 hours ago

Basically that; I'd imagine their immune systems are more complex nowadays just because the threats are

[-] Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca 7 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

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.

From what I can tell, arachnids might share a common ancestor with horseshoe crabs, which is kinda crazy to think about.

As well, they look the same phycially but the DNA has changed significantly, potentially just internal things or chemical/biological processes etc.

this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2025
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