The lives of the Limuli

The horseshoe crab is one of the oldest species on the planet; I remember it only because it has a wonderfully lilting name, but Gautam Pandey has just done an important film on the small living fossil. S Radhika reports on Limulus Polyphemus in The Indian Express:

"Until about three years ago, Gautam Pandey hadn’t seen a horseshoe crab. So, when he came across a washed up crab, upturned, on the sands of Balasore, Orissa, he didn’t quite know the discovery he’d stumbled upon. The crew, his father Mike Pandey’s, was shooting turtles but the upstart shell got Gautam wondering.
...The humble living fossil became the hero of Timeless Traveller: The Horseshoe Crab—grabbing the spotlight at the International Wildlife Film Festival at France—and Gautam, the crab advocate.
Here was an ‘‘animal’’ that barely moved, had no impressive stripes or spots, not a sound but crawling on a stealer of a story—16 ice ages, 562 million years and not a change. A fossil carrying a veritable medical store, with documented medical value in countering osteoporosis and diabetes with research on for possible cures for AIDS, given the immunity powerhouse it is. But there was another story—the crab that successfully saw off dinosaurs and mammoths might just give up with man."