Why Do Things Keep Evolving Into Crabs?

Check out our podcast Eons: Mysteries of Deep Time: For some reason, animals keep evolving into things that look like crabs, independently, over and over again. What is it about the crab’s form that makes it so evolutionarily successful that non-crabs are apparently jealous of it?  PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to Thanks to Franz Anthony for all of the ancient crab (and “crab“) illustrations featured throughout this episode! And special thanks to Dr. Jo Wolfe, Dr. Javier Luque, and Dr. Katie Collins for assisting Franz with research for those illustrations. And thank you to Dr. Rodney Feldmann for providing a photo of the Paralomis debodeorum fossil! Produced in collaboration with PBS Digital Studios: Super special thanks to the following Patreon patrons for helping make Eons possible: Matt D, Yu Mei, Colleen Troussel, Dan Ritter, Drew Hart, faxo, Gary Walker, Stephanie Tan, Minyuan Li, Ben Cooper, Leonid, Robert Noah, Matt Parker, Heathe Kyle, Yeakley, Jerrit Erickson, Jack Arbuckle, David Sewall, Anton Bryl, MissyElliottSmith, Zachary Spencer, Stefan Weber, Andrey, Ilya Murashov, Larry Wilson, Merri, Snaidman, Marcus Lejon, Robert Arévalo, Todd Dittman, Betsy Radley, Anthony Callaghan, Laura Sanborn, PS, Philip Slingerland, John Vanek, Eric Vonk, Henrik Peteri, Jon Monteiro, James Bording, Miles Chaston, Michael McClellan, Jeff Graham, Maria Humphrey, Daisuke Goto, Hubert Rady, Gregory Kintz, Tyson, Chandler Bass, Joao, Ascensao, Tsee Lee, Robert Hill, and Frida Coffey. If you’d like to support the channel, head over to and pledge for some cool rewards! Want to follow Eons elsewhere on the internet? Facebook - Twitter - Instagram - References: