<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">ROME (AFP) - Who could have guessed that throughout the rise and fall of Rome's emperors, monarchs and politicians a lowly creature has reigned supreme in the ruins of Trajan's mighty empire? Potamon fluviatile, an unassuming freshwater crab, has shown superior staying power, thriving in the canals built by the Etruscans nearly 3,000 years ago, Italian zoologists say. The ancient ruins of Trajan's Forum in the heart of the Eternal City have provided the ideal habitat for the crustacean, which is much larger than its counterparts in lakes and rivers, Massimiliano Scalici told AFP. The narrow canals that flow under Trajan's Forum lead to the Cloaca Massima, the ancient Roman sewage system built in the sixth century BC initially to drain local marshes. "Early results of a genetic analysis that we are doing show that the genes of the crabs at Trajan are very close to those of Greek freshwater crabs," Scalici said. "So it's very likely that they were introduced by the Greeks 2,500 or 3,000 years ago, which means they were here even before Rome was founded in 753 BC," he added. While in nature the crab grows to a length of five centimetres (two inches), it is more robust in the ruins, growing to more than eight centimetres. "Once we found a moult (shed exoskeleton) measuring 12 centimetres!" Scalici said during a tour of the site. "Gigantism is one animal response to isolation, and it is a phenomenon that requires a long time," he noted.</div> <div align="center">Source: Yahoo! News</div>
