Tracks Of 5-Foot Ancient Scorpion Discovered In Scotland - Reuters

LONDON - Tracks made 330 million years ago by a six-legged water scorpion bigger than a human have been found in Scotland.

Martin Whyte, the geologist at the University of Sheffield in northern England who discovered the tracks, said on Wednesday they were left by a scorpion that measured 1.6 metres (5 ft 3 inches) in length and one metre across. "To my knowledge, this is ... the largest terrestrial trackway of a walking arthropod to be found so far," he said in a report in the journal Nature.

Arthropods include insects, spiders, crabs, shrimps and lobsters. They have a body divided into distinct parts, an outside skeleton and jointed legs.

Whyte said the now extinct giant scorpion had at least three pairs of appendages of different lengths. Its lumbering movement indicated the creature could have survived out of water.

EDIT

http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/33753/story.htm

i always thought there was a size limit due to the ability to absorb oxygen and the exoskeleton having to support the mass.

It's ability to survive on land was limited to temporary forays. Maybe like a lung-fish.

A five-foot scorpion - DAMN!

...before putting them on.

I think not!

Sounds to me like these Scottish scientists have, in fact, uncovered marks of His Noodly Appendages!!!!

These babies got up to 2 meters long. And fossil tracks are known.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurypterida

This is the very last reference in the Wikipedia article, dated December 2005. Talk about a fast update!

I was a bit worried there for a minute. :hide:

And a large can of Old Bay.