A gigantic fossil claw of a 390 million-year-old sea scorpion, found recently in Germany, showed that the creature is the biggest bug known, a research team reported on Wednesday. (File Photo) Photo Gallery>>>

    WASHINGTON, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- A gigantic fossil claw of a 390 million-year-old sea scorpion, found recently in Germany, showed that the creature is the biggest bug known, a research team reported on Wednesday.

    "Imagine an eight-foot-long (2.44 meters) scorpion," said Erik Tetlie, postdoctoral associate in the Department of Geology and Geophysics at Yale University, and an author of the online report in Royal Society Biology Letters.

    "The claw itself is a foot-and-a-half long (0.46 meter), indicating that these ancient arthropods were much larger than previous estimates, and certainly the largest seen to date," said Tetlie.

    Co-author Markus Poschmann discovered the fossil claw from the ancient sea scorpion Jaekelopterus rhenaniae in a quarry near Prumin Germany.

    "This is an amazing discovery. We have known for some time that the fossil record yields monster millipedes, super-sized scorpions, colossal cockroaches, and jumbo dragonflies, but we never realized, until now, just how big some of these ancient creepy-crawlies were," said lead author Simon Braddy, from the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol, UK.

    This creature, which lived between 460 and 255 million years ago, belonged to a group that has been known to be among the largest extinct arthropods, based on both body fossils and trace fossils.

    The researchers said this enormous claw showed that ancient arthropods such as spiders, insects, crabs and the like were surprisingly larger than their modern-day counterparts. It is believed that these extinct aquatic creatures are the ancestors of modern scorpions and spiders.

    Tetlie said geologists are debating the reasons for the evolution of these giant arthropods.

    "While some believe they evolved with the higher levels of atmospheric oxygen that were present in the past, some say they evolved in a parallel 'arms race' with early armored fish that were their likely prey," said Tetlie.

Ancient sea scorpion bigger than men
        BEIJING, Nov. 21 (Xinhuanet) -- British scientists fonud 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 at nearly 2 meters long as big as some Smart cars.  Full story