Well, only its claw, and its been dead for a few hundred thousand years and the BBC headline the article as if its claw alone was the size of a man, but still; scorpion the size of a man found.
Bloody big scorpion found!
- Thread starter The Squire of Gothos
- Start date
In prehistoric Earth, scopions step on you!
None alive though
And also rock you like a hurricane.
Without invoking humor, what did it eat?
I have always heard that insects don't get beyond a certain size because they couldn't support their own weight and that they would need lungs to circulate enough air. That Article mentions other nasty critters like the scorpion. Here is an interesting Neil Adams site(Legenday Comic Artist and author). Read the article in the first link then look at the whole site if you can-very interesting.
http://www.nealadams.com/EarthProject/antipangea.html
http://www.nealadams.com/nmu.html
http://www.nealadams.com/EarthProject/antipangea.html
http://www.nealadams.com/nmu.html
That's true. Insects have a very primitive respiratory system compared to ours, because it's open. The air simply diffuses into their bodies through their breathing pores. Because of the weight of their skeletons, they can only grow so big in relation to the ratio of oxygen in the atmosphere. The reason we find larger insects in the fossil record is that the atmosphere was different then, and contained more oxygen than it does now.
Admittedly I'm less sure if the same principle works with aquatic arthropods, but it's certainly possible.
Admittedly I'm less sure if the same principle works with aquatic arthropods, but it's certainly possible.
The same mechanism doesn't apply to aquatic arthropods, or certainly not to the same extent. The respiration system of terrestrial insects evolved to minimize water loss during gas exchange. So the tiny tracheae tubules and spiracle are an adaptation for that, and it's the tracheae that limit the size of the insect. Aquatic arthropods have no such problems because they live in a nice, wet medium and therefore don't have to worry about the respiratory surfaces drying out. Eurypterids had book gills, much like those of modern horseshore crabs (their close relatives). In the case of this animal, it's large size was likely more a function of lack of predation, as lacustrine ecosystems weren't as heavily colonized in the late Paleozoic as they are today.
-MEC
-MEC
No, we're not running out of it (though we might eventually if we don't improve pollution), it's just that the ratio of oxygen at that time was much higher than it is now. And that was part of the reason for some animals being larger than their present-day descendants.
Just as before the first photosynthetic plants evolved, there was little or no oxygen in the atmosphere. Certainly not enough to support the complex life forms that have been on the planet since.
Just as before the first photosynthetic plants evolved, there was little or no oxygen in the atmosphere. Certainly not enough to support the complex life forms that have been on the planet since.
That's right. Oxygen levels have varied throughout geological time and are largely governed by changes in the carbon cycle (the ratio of burial to weathering of organic carbon). Right now oxygen makes up about 21% of the atmosphere, but it was as high as 35% in the Carboniferous (when the giant arthropods lived). The reason it was so high then was because lignin (the hard tissue tree trunks are made of) had recently evolved so a huge amount of carbon was buried, increasing atmospheric oxygen levels. Conversely, oxygen was as low as 15% in the Early Triassic - and that was complicated but due in part to increasing aridity across Pangaea during deglaciation from the late Paleozoic ice age and the transition to the greenhouse climates of the Middle and Late Permian. That reduced plant production and organic matter burial, and you were probably weathering a bunch of the organic carbon formerly in the Carboniferous coal swamps. The Siberian Traps flood basalts (and the huge amount of reduced chemical species like CO2 and SO2 they put out) was the final kick in the teeth and really drove the Early Triassic hypoxia.
-MEC
-MEC
All Seeing Eye
Admiral
I'd like to know how they can determine the size of the creature just by one of its claws, who's to say the thing didnt have oversized claws for its size? take crabs for instance, some crabs are the same size but one species has large claws and another only has small ones. Personally I think they've over estimated the size of the creature, a claw is not enough to determine the creatures body size.
It's called "making an educated guess" -- the size of the claw they found is compared proportionally to those of known complete specimens -- and in this case, the people doing the guessing are very well-educated on the subject. Upon what are you basing your personal opinion?
Yep. In the absence of a complete specimen, they have to use living species for comparison to judge size. Naturally that doesn't guarantee the scale is accurate, without finding more evidence, but it's more practical to assume a proportionate creature than one with oversized limbs.
Whatever it wanted to, I'm sure.
(Glad to be alive today)
Little dinos walked up the water front, started to drink, and WHAM! A tail shot from the water and crashing into the top of the skull, killing dino instantly.
That's a seen you won't see in disney's "Dinosuars 2".
That's a seen you won't see in disney's "Dinosuars 2".
