Are you terrified of a tiny five-inch scorpion? To additional set off your arachnophobia, meet the one-meter-long scorpion that dominated the South China Sea some 400 million years in the past.
nominated Pteropterus zeushanensis, it belonged to an extinct arthropod group known as eurypterids.
This group first appeared within the Ordovician period, or 480 million years in the past, and reached its peak of range within the Silurian interval (430 million years in the past). By the top of the Permian period, or about 280 million years in the past, the group was utterly extinct.
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The fossil was described from the Fanto Formation of Wuhan, Hubei, South China. The new species was noticed to have specialised basket-like appendages to carry its prey and was subsequently positioned beneath a bunch of eurypterids known as mixopterids.
a), c), d), e) and f) appendages of scorpions; b) reconstruction drawing, dorsal and ventral view; g) Genital operculum and genital appendage(nigpass)
“Our knowledge of mixopterids is limited to only four species in two genera, all of which were based on a few fossil specimens of the Silurian Laurusia 80 years ago,” lead writer Han Wang stated in a launch. He is from Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology and Center for Excellence in Life and Paleoenvironment, Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The different 4 species of mixopterids have been beforehand reported from Norway, New York, Estonia and Scotland. This is the primary recorded mixopterid from Gondwana. “Future work, particularly in Asia, may reveal a more cosmopolitan distribution of mixopterids and perhaps other groups of eurypterids,” says a lately revealed paper. science bulletin.
The new species had an enlarged limb and was characterised by a singular association of the backbone. The staff says this massive arthropod might have performed an vital position as one of many apex predators. By learning the variations in morphology, they hope to uncover the advanced evolutionary historical past and relationships of this group.
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With inputs from TheIndianEXPRESS
