Around 248 million years ago, a mass extinction wipes out most life on Earth. Half of all animal families become extinct. Almost every single marine species is erased, including thousands of species of trilobite. Among the hardy survivors is a trilobite cousin, a 10-legged, 9-eyed, carapace-covered creature, living in the shallow waters of a ravaged planet.
Fast forward 200 million years, and our survivor continues to live in these shallow waters, a small creature surrounded by giant dinosaurs. When another mass extinction hits the Earth, these giants succumb, along with about half of marine invertebrates. But not our survivor, whose unchanged shape and size allow him to soldier on, even through several ice ages.
Who is this survivor, a living fossil that looks like a rock, moves like a tank, and chews food with its legs?
