March 5th, 2012 
riffin A 390-million-year-old fossil has yielded new insights into the evolutionary origins of the front claws of scorpions and horseshoe crabs. The fossil was discovered by scientists from Yale University and the University of Bonn Germany. It was unearthed in a quarry near Bundenbach in Germany and has been given the scientific name Schinderhannes bartelsi. The fossils recovered from this region, known as the Hunsrück Slate, are extremely durable and have previously produced other arthropod fossils such as shrimp-like creatures, scorpions, sea spiders and trilobites.
“With a head like the giant Cambrian aquatic predator Anomalocaris and a body like a modern arthropod, the specimen is the only known example of this unusual creature,” ~ Derek Briggs, director of Yale’s Peabody Museum of Natural History
The paired appendages on the head of of Schinderhannes bartelsi bear some resemblance to the grasping appendages found on the heads of scorpions and horseshoe crabs.
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