Mecochirus longimanus
Solnhofen Limestone (Upper Jurassic Tithonian)
Eichstatt, Germany

What a story this specimen has to tell! This interesting slab has a preserved trackway and at the end is the crustacean that made it. Mecochirus is a very characteristic member of the Solnhofen fauna. Its first pair of walking legs is an unmistakable feature. The legs are greatly elongated and hence the name longimanus (long-armed). The cephalothoras is seldom well preserved probably because it was less sturdy than other crustaceans. Mecochirus may have lived in cavities or buried in sandy sediments from which it extended its antennae and long arms to capture prey.
The Solnhofen Plattenkalk, or Solnhofen limestone, is a Jurassic Konservat-Lagerst�tte that preserves a rare assemblage of fossilized organisms, including highly detailed imprints of soft bodied organisms such as sea jellies. The most familiar fossils of the Solnhofen Plattenkalk include the early feathered theropod dinosaur Archaeopteryx preserved in such detail that they are among the most famous and most beautiful fossils in the world. The Solnhofen beds lie in the German state of Bavaria (Bayern), halfway between Nuremberg (N�rnberg) and Munich (M�nchen) and were originally quarried as a source of Lithographic limestone.