麻豆社

We know from fossils that brachiopods were once very abundant in the ancient seas.

They came in all shapes and sizes with some having coils of lime inside their shells to support their feeding apparatus.

But around 70 million years ago they went into decline and now only a few species survive.

One, the lingula, lives on the muddy shores of Japan where they are collected at low tide for food.

There they are called shamisen-gai because they are shaped like the Japanese guitar, the shamisen. They are virtually identical to the fossils of their ancestors.