On first glance, the creature looks to be 10 claws set under a military helmet and backed by a long, malevolent-looking tail. Levin knew nothing of Limulus polyphemus, or horseshoe crabs as they're commonly known. 'Pick one out,' Bang said, pointing to the creatures. When the prehistoric-looking marine arthropods inside that tank moved, seawater splashed onto the floor. Levin met his new boss, Frederik Bang, and soon followed the then chair of Pathobiology at the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health into a primitive-looking laboratory containing a rudimentary 'sea table' and a dingy aquarium tank.

He was a hematology fellow at this point, shipped up to Cape Cod for a summer research project at the Marine Biological Laboratory. The year was 1963, two years before Levin would begin a 17-year stint on the faculty of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

Fear at first sight: That was Jack Levin's reaction upon meeting the creature that put him on the path to lasting scientific achievement.

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