Edinboro professor studies lobster "missing link"

Sean McCracken - 

The phrase "lobster missing link" might be a little bit misleading.

What Dale Tshudy's research helped to uncover wasn't a small, clawed Sasquatch patrolling the Atlantic coast of Maine, but from his perspective, it was something even more exciting.

Tshudy, a geosciences professor at Edinboro University and a widely-regarded expert in crustacean fossils, has spent the past few years fill in a large blank in the evolution of lobsters.

"It's months of long days," Tshudy said. "But I enjoy maintaining and improving the database we all work from."

By studying some 50-million-year-old fossils found off the coast of Steeple Bay, England, Tshudy believes he has found evidence of an extinct lobster species.

The new species fills in numerous gaps in what they know about the lobster genus Thaumastocheles.

This particular group of lobsters isn't what you'd expect to see on your dinner plate. These lobsters reside in the deep waters of places like the Sea of Japan or the Caribbean and are very rarely encountered by humans.

Tshudy said they're most easily recognized by their long, slender claws and a "bulb-shaped" palm, which look very little like the fat, club-like claws of Maine lobsters.

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Photo Rob Engelhardt/Erie

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