Exquisitely Ornamented Ranina Fossil Crab from Tuscany

Description: In March and July of 2008 I had the unique privilege of purchasing two large lots from a most important collection. The collector had painstakingly accumulated a superb group of decapods, echinoderms and other fossils during a twenty-year period. The vast majority of the specimens came from self-collecting, academic resources, trading, and selected purchases. Very few of fossils came from the normal channels of trade shows and commercial internet resources. Any specimen presented under this introductory paragraph will generally be a superior collector grade fossil; be it of rarity, preservation, or, both.

Ranina's family is one of the most coveted of all fossil crab genera. These unusual crabs named for their frog-like appearance, taken by most scientists to be quite primitive. The genus is easily identified by it’s ornate elongated carapace and claws (see extant specimen to right). This one has about 98 % of it’s dorsal carapace intact as well as both arms and pincers. Some residual leg segments are intact, On the ventral side two of the legs are mostly preserved. This would be a wonderful acquisition for the species collector of decopods.

Today the genus has only one species, Ranina ranina limited to the Indo-Pacific Ocean.