According to cnet, scientists have recently found fossil remains of a giant "scorpion" more than 400 million years ago on the seabed of China, which is more than 3 feet (about 1 meter) long. The giant creature known as the terropterus xiushanensis is a member of the mixopteridae family, a large, scorpion-like creature with barbed appendages adorned with needle-like spikes and tails reminiscent of serrated knives.
"These appendages may have been used to catch prey and could be compared to the 'catch basket' formed by the thorny toes of whip spiders," the study authors wrote in a paper on the discovery, which will be published in the November issue of the journal Science Bulletin.
"What we know about these weird animals is limited to four species in the two genera described 80 years ago," the international team said in the study. Close relatives of those threatening insects have been found around Scotland, New York, Norway and Estonia.
But the paper notes that this huge creepy arachnid is the first of its kind to be found near southern China and is the oldest known member of the dreaded mixopteridae family. In ancient times, between 443.8 million years ago and 419.2 million years ago, in the early Silurian period.
The new fossils could further deepen scientists' understanding of the diversity and range of these ferocious marine animals. "With such large barbed appendages and possibly poisonous tails to catch and strike prey, terropterus most likely played an important role as a top predator in marine ecosystems in the early Silurian period, when there were no competitors for large vertebrates in Southern China," the researchers wrote. ”
Because the fossils show different patterns of spines and spikes on the creature, the researchers also suspect that the unusually large "scorpion" has some different strategies to catch prey. But eventually, when sharks and other more modern predators emerge, these "scorpions" no longer dominate the oceans and may be forced to disappear.