Details about ancient sea scorpions have been recorded, but astoundingly large and impressive fossils from Australia have amazed scientists with their ability to cross oceans and vanish off the face of the Earth. This groundbreaking discovery will help researchers solve the mystery of what happened.
According to The Sun , fossils have been found in the past but rarely in Oceania, opening up a new exciting area of research. Furthermore, most fossils have been too fragmented to identify, as researchers seem to be searching for the most gigantesque members of this intriguing family of sea creatures.
The latest and rarest recently turned up in Australia. Researchers assembled the pieces into a very large picture, according to Russell Bicknell, study lead author and paleobiologist from the American Museum of Natural History.
Though further investigation is needed, they believe they are a Pterygotus and Jaekelopterus. The latter was the biggest sea scorpion that ever lived. These fossils will help researchers garner new insights into these sea beasts, why they went extinct, and the ancient life of Australia overall.
Sea scorpions bigger than basketball players once ruled the oceans
Once upon a time, 400 million years ago, gigantic scorpions ruled the seas as fierce predators larger than basketball players, but they suddenly and mysteriously vanished about 393 million years ago, CBC reports .
Belonging to a diverse group of 200 species, these arthropods, known as eurypterids, would have struck fear into the hearts of most men with their thick exoskeletons and powerful claws and legs. But the new fossils shocked Bicknell and his team with how strong these sea scorpions were.
“That tells us that these animals were actually really built quite effectively for traveling really, really far. So they were probably traversing a similar amount of distance as some whales do,” Dr. Bicknell explained to CBC .
“And that’s really, really exciting because it’s really, really hard for us to know how these animals were able to migrate, or if they did migrate, without these kinds of fossils.”
The fossils suggest that these sea scorpions grew to such an unimaginable size that they could cross the whole world, raising questions about whether the migration was seasonal or a massive exodus, The Sun reports .
“The animals had basically managed to migrate to the oceans around Australia and then was sort of moving in and out of these environments that we think are kind of like very, very big deltas — kind of freshwater, kind of marine environments,” Bicknell continued to CBC .
According to The New York Times , the fossil record indicates that their rulership peaked about 444 million years ago , but they were never seen again.
What happened to the ancient sea scorpion?
After performing such a feat, why did they go extinct? It remains a most intriguing question. With potentially unprecedented information at the researcher’s fingertips, they could be a step closer to understanding why they grew to such an extraordinary size to disappear for all eternity. Was it climate change or tectonic shifts? The fate of the giant sea creature leaves researchers with nothing but questions.
“It may be environmental. It may be ecological, so they’re sort of competing with different animals. Or they may have just pushed themselves too far, and that resulted in their extinction,” he said. “That’s sort of an open question,” Bicknell admitted to CBC .
According to New York Times , as more discoveries are made, researchers will be able to solve the mystery . What we do know is that they were enormous Olympic swimmers.
The latest research on the giant sea scorpion is published in Gondwana Research .
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