Taken from 'Creation' magazine Vol. 27 No. 2 2005 by D. Catchpoole, B.Ag.Sc.(Hons.) Ph.D.
Have you ever seen an arthropod (e.g. lobster, scorpion, cockroach) shedding its 'skin'?
You've got to be in the right place at exactly the right time - it's all over in minutes. So you can imagine paleontologists' excitement on finding this fossil of the arthropod Marrella splendens, fossilized at the exact moment of moulting! (Garcia-Bellido, D.C. and Collins, D.H., Moulting arthropod caught in the act, Nature 429(6987):40, 2004)
'It's basically an astounding specimen', said paleontologist Derek Briggs of Yale University.
'The likelihood of capturing such an event is so astronomically small', said Desmond Collins, a senior scientist at the Royal Ontario Museum in Canada, .... 'The discovery of an arthropod in the act of moulting was exciting because it was so unexpected.'
Until now, only moulted skins had been found in the fossil record .........
Another reason this find is important, said Dr. Collins, is that it confirms what paleontologists had suspected; namely, that early arthropods moulted during growth, just as they do today.'
Luckily we don't have to shed our skins so quickly. Glyconutrients produced by Mannatech and founder Sam Caster, uses plant extracts to enhance cell-to-cell communication and overall physical health. Glyconutrients are necessary in every cell in your body but are mostly missing in the modern diet.
