November 21, 2007
Record-Breaking Bug Found in Germany
A fossilized claw 46 centimeters long found in a quarry near Düsseldorf gave
researchers a shock: it once belonged to a sea scorpion the size of two
grown men.
The biggest bug to ever live has been found in Germany, but don't panic:
It's been dead for 390 million years. From the tip of its massive claws to
the end of its tail, the prehistoric beast - a sea scorpion, an aquatic
ancestor of modern scorpions and spiders -- was 3.5 meters long and weighed
as much as two men.
In a paper published Tuesday in the British journal Biology Letters, a team
of researchers led by University of Bristol paleobiologist Simon Braddy
describe the creature, which is named jaekelopterus rhenaniae.
The sea scorpion's body alone stretched 2.5 meters. Braddy estimates it
weighed in at 180 kilos, too big for its spindly legs to support it on land.
Instead, it used a powerful tail and a pair of wide hind legs as paddles to
cruise through prehistoric seas and rivers hunting for prey.
Unlike modern, land-dwelling scorpions, the sea scorpion had no stinger. "It
used its claws to catch prey," Braddy told SPIEGEL Online. "It would lie in
wait near the sea floor and when a fish or another creepy-crawly came along,
the scorpion would lunge forward and rip it to pieces."
The 46-centimeter fossil was discovered in a rock quarry near Prum, south of
Düsseldorf. Markus Poschmann, an excavator for the Mainz Cultural Heritage
Directorate, discovered the fossil. "I was loosening pieces of rock with a
hammer and chisel when I suddenly realised there was a dark patch of organic
matter on a freshly removed slab," Poschmann said.
"After some cleaning I could identify this as a small part of a large claw.
Although I did not know if it was more complete or not, I decided to try and
get it out."
After careful excavation, Poschmann removed a large slab of rock that
contained a full claw. After cleaning and piecing together the fragments,
Poschmann knew he had discovered something unusual.
To reconstruct the animal's size, the team relied on past finds. "We've
found smaller versions of the same animals in the past," Braddy said. Based
on the claw, the researchers were able to calculate how big the rest of the
animal was by using smaller finds as a guide.
Sea scorpions are arachnids, or distant ancestors of spiders, and have been
extinct for hundreds of millions of years. But long before they died out,
some sea scorpions made the slow creep up onto land, evolving larger legs
and a different set of claws. Fossils show that scorpions as long as a meter
once crawled the Earth.
As vertebrate animals like dinosaurs began to proliferate, insects and other
arthropods - "creepy-crawlies" with jointed, segmented limbs that run the
gamut from spiders and scorpions to cockroaches, flies and lobsters -- found
it beneficial to get smaller to avoid predators.
The newly-discovered sea scorpion lived at a time when giant insects were a
common sight. Between 460 and 255 million years ago, the mega-arachnid
shared the Earth with two-meter long millipedes and dragonflies with wings
75 cm long. Higher levels of oxygen contributed to the Brobdingnagian bugs,
as did competition with other arthropods.
Just because vertebrates sit atop the food chain doesn't mean we've won the
evolutionary game of life: Insects make up three quarters of all life on
Earth. Says Braddy: "In terms of sheer numbers, it's a bug world."
agc
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,518734,00.html
How this mutated into the JTEM insect in modern times is not yet clear, but
it must be part of his phenotype-genotype.
Doc :))~
.
|
|
| User: "JTEM" |
|
| Title: Re: Record-Breaking Bug Found In Germany |
21 Nov 2007 07:32:04 PM |
|
|
"Docrodile" <swampth...@hellsbayou.net> wrote:
[---nothing---]
What would our sad little monkey be doing right now
if it was normal?
.
|
|
|
|
| User: "Woodswun" |
|
| Title: Re: Record-Breaking Bug Found In Germany |
22 Nov 2007 02:21:08 PM |
|
|
On Wed, 21 Nov 2007 12:50:04 -0800, Docrodile wrote:
November 21, 2007
Record-Breaking Bug Found in Germany
A fossilized claw 46 centimeters long found in a quarry near Düsseldorf gave
researchers a shock: it once belonged to a sea scorpion the size of two
grown men.
The biggest bug to ever live has been found in Germany, but don't panic:
It's been dead for 390 million years. From the tip of its massive claws to
the end of its tail, the prehistoric beast - a sea scorpion, an aquatic
ancestor of modern scorpions and spiders -- was 3.5 meters long and weighed
as much as two men.
It probably tasted a lot like lobster. If they were still around, they'd
probably be "the" entree for weddings! MmmmMMMmmm!
Woods
.
|
|
|
| User: "WH" |
|
| Title: Re: Record-Breaking Bug Found In Germany |
22 Nov 2007 05:05:55 PM |
|
|
On 22 Nov, 21:21, Woodswun <woods...@tepidmail.com> wrote:
On Wed, 21 Nov 2007 12:50:04 -0800, Docrodile wrote:
November 21, 2007
Record-Breaking Bug Found in Germany
A fossilized claw 46 centimeters long found in a quarry near D=FCsseldor=
f gave
researchers a shock: it once belonged to a sea scorpion the size of two
grown men.
The biggest bug to ever live has been found in Germany, but don't panic:=
It's been dead for 390 million years. From the tip of its massive claws =
to
the end of its tail, the prehistoric beast - a sea scorpion, an aquatic
ancestor of modern scorpions and spiders -- was 3.5 meters long and weig=
hed
as much as two men.
It probably tasted a lot like lobster. If they were still around, they'd
probably be "the" entree for weddings! MmmmMMMmmm!
Woods
You got a pot that size Woodsy?
WH
.
|
|
|
| User: "Woodswun" |
|
| Title: Re: Record-Breaking Bug Found In Germany |
22 Nov 2007 08:11:10 PM |
|
|
On Thu, 22 Nov 2007 15:05:55 -0800, WH wrote:
On 22 Nov, 21:21, Woodswun <woods...@tepidmail.com> wrote:
On Wed, 21 Nov 2007 12:50:04 -0800, Docrodile wrote:
November 21, 2007
Record-Breaking Bug Found in Germany
A fossilized claw 46 centimeters long found in a quarry near Düsseldorf gave
researchers a shock: it once belonged to a sea scorpion the size of two
grown men.
The biggest bug to ever live has been found in Germany, but don't panic:
It's been dead for 390 million years. From the tip of its massive claws to
the end of its tail, the prehistoric beast - a sea scorpion, an aquatic
ancestor of modern scorpions and spiders -- was 3.5 meters long and weighed
as much as two men.
It probably tasted a lot like lobster. If they were still around, they'd
probably be "the" entree for weddings! MmmmMMMmmm!
Woods
You got a pot that size Woodsy?
WH
No, but I'm not a caterer. ;-)
Woods
.
|
|
|
| User: "Pers3id" |
|
| Title: Re: Record-Breaking Bug Found In Germany |
23 Nov 2007 01:22:57 AM |
|
|
Woodswun <woodswun@tepidmail.com> wrote in
news:474636be$0$19633$4c368faf@roadrunner.com:
On Thu, 22 Nov 2007 15:05:55 -0800, WH wrote:
On 22 Nov, 21:21, Woodswun <woods...@tepidmail.com> wrote:
On Wed, 21 Nov 2007 12:50:04 -0800, Docrodile wrote:
November 21, 2007
Record-Breaking Bug Found in Germany
A fossilized claw 46 centimeters long found in a quarry near
Düsseldorf gave researchers a shock: it once belonged to a sea
scorpion the size of two grown men.
The biggest bug to ever live has been found in Germany, but don't
panic: It's been dead for 390 million years. From the tip of its
massive claws to the end of its tail, the prehistoric beast - a
sea scorpion, an aquatic ancestor of modern scorpions and spiders
-- was 3.5 meters long and weighed as much as two men.
It probably tasted a lot like lobster. If they were still around,
they'd probably be "the" entree for weddings! MmmmMMMmmm!
Woods
You got a pot that size Woodsy?
WH
No, but I'm not a caterer. ;-)
Woods
It might taste like lobster.. if it didn't eat you before you ate it.
.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Related Articles |
|
|
