LONDON — This was a bug you couldn’t swat and definitely couldn’t step on.
British scientists have stumbled across a fossilized claw, part of an ancient sea scorpion, that is of such large proportion it would make the entire creature the biggest bug ever.
How big? Bigger than you, and at 8 feet long, as big as some Smart cars.
The discovery in 390-million-year-old rocks suggests spiders, insects, crabs and similar creatures were far larger in the past than previously thought, said Simon Braddy, a University of Bristol paleontologist and one of the study’s three authors.
“We have known for some time that the fossil record yields monster millipedes, supersized scorpions, colossal cockroaches and jumbo dragonflies. But we never realized until now just how big some of these ancient creepy-crawlies were,” he said.
The research found a type of sea scorpion that was almost half a yard longer than previous estimates and the largest one ever to have evolved.
The study was published online Tuesday in the Royal Society’s journal, Biology Letters.
Professor Jeorg Schneider, a paleontologist at Freiberg Mining Academy in southeastern Germany, said the study provides valuable new information about “the last of the giant scorpions.”
Schneider, who was not involved in the study, said the scorpions “were dominant for millions of years because they didn’t have natural enemies. Eventually they were wiped out by large fish with jaws and teeth.”
Braddy’s partner paleontologist Markus Poschmann found the claw fossil several years ago in a quarry near Prum, Germany, that probably had once been an ancient estuary or swamp.
Braddy and some geologists believe gigantic sea scorpions evolved due to higher levels of oxygen in the atmosphere in the past. Others suspect they evolved in an “arms race” alongside their likely prey, fish that had armor on their outer bodies.
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