ナショナルジオグラフィックさんのインスタグラム写真 - (ナショナルジオグラフィックInstagram)「Congratulations to Laurent Ballesta for winning the international Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition from the Natural History Museum in London! See more stunning photos from this year’s best wildlife photographers at the link in bio. Photo by @laurentballesta | A tri-spine horseshoe crab (Tachypleus tridentatus) kicks up sediment along the muddy bottom of Pangatalan Island, a marine protected area in the Philippines created by the Sulubaaï Foundation. It’s hard to tell if the creature can swim ... It paddles, pedals, and trots along the bottom of the sea. As a marine arthropod—not a crustacean but a chelicerate—it is more similar to a giant wood louse, a spider, or a scorpion, rather than a lobster. Horseshoe crabs are considered a panchronic species because they have a strong morphological resemblance to fossil species that lived 500 million years ago. Nothing seems to have forced them to change, evolve, adapt. Dinosaurs might have been the strongest, but this is the creature that survived. Three juvenile golden trevallies (Gnathanodon speciosus) escort the horseshoe crab, as they often do with big animals such as sharks or giant groupers. Here in Pangatalan waters, after decades of overfishing, the biggest animals are gone. The fish dart and twinkle above the site, flaming beacons of this silent caterpillar of the seas.」10月14日 6時00分