Roman river crab in its natural habitat. Photo by Danielle Macale.
On Scientific American’s Guest Blog today, Rob shares a fascinating tale about crabs recently discovered in a portion of Rome’s underground river – They look and act differently than other Italian river crabs… Has a new ten-legged species evolved beneath Rome?
I just read your article about Roman Crabs and the musing aoubt what other different sort of variations might be found in Roman creatures. I imagine you have seen this, but it reminded me of what my fellow students and I noticed in the fgeral cat population in Rome — interestingly enough, also in and around the Colliseum, (sp?). This was a very long time ago, (1978), but I don’t imagine that it has changed. There was a large feral cat population and these cats had one very different attribute: their teeth – especially canines were so large that the looked a little like fangs, and more than a little menacing as the uppers hung over the cats bottom jaw. I could imagine this attribute making them better survivors in their rough environment.
By the way, when I was a teenager and vacationing in the northern woods of Wisconsin, I also saw a 2 foot woodpecker – (Pileated or Ivory billed?), in the Nothern Wisconsin forest.