Britain:One of its claws might feed an entire family, but this sea creature would be more likely to eat the family.
British researchers have discovered an 18in (45cm) fossilised claw of an ancient sea scorpion that would have been eight feet (2.4m) long, making it the largest arthropod ever discovered. "We knew the sea scorpions were among the largest creepy-crawlies ever, but we didn't realise just how big they could get," said Simon Braddy of Bristol University, primary author of the report in the journal, Biology Letters.
Sea scorpions became extinct about 250 million years ago, but were precursors of modern land-based scorpions. Smaller varieties are common in the fossil record, and they probably made brief forays on to land.
But "there is no way this thing could have crawled out onto land", Dr Braddy said. "This is simply too spindly. Its legs would break under its own weight."
And what does an eight-foot sea scorpion eat? Pretty much anything it wants to, Dr Braddy said. The creature would have been the dominant predator in its environment, which might have been one of the factors that allowed it to grow so large, he said. - (LA Times-Washington Post service)