Fossilized scorpion was bigger than a human

Paleontologists discovered a giant fossilized claw that once belonged to an 2.5 meter (8 foot) long sea scorpion. The University of Bristol scientists uncovered the claw near Prum, Germany. It's approximately 400 million years old. From the Associated Press:

"We have known for some time that the fossil record yields monster millipedes, super-sized scorpions, colossal cockroaches, and jumbo dragonflies. But we never realized until now just how big some of these ancient creepy-crawlies were," (paleontologist Simon Braddy) said...

Braddy said the sea scorpions also were cannibals that fought and ate one other, so it helped to be as big as they could be.

"The competition between this scorpion and its prey was probably like a nuclear standoff, an effort to have the biggest weapon," he said. "Hundreds of millions of years ago, these sea scorpions had the upper hand over vertebrates -- backboned animals like ourselves."

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David Pescovitz is Boing Boing's co-editor/managing partner. He's also a research director at Institute for the Future. On Instagram, he's @pesco.

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The Snowden Principle

planettom

I’m advancing the theory that there is a geological phenomena that causes certain areas in strata to expand.

So all these giant bug fossils were just normal-sized insects, but over time the fossils have grown larger, the way a Gummi Bear will expand if left in water overnight.

Similarly, dinosaurs were actually the size of poodles!
Murderface

Awesome. A professional paleontologist used the phrase “creepy-crawlies” to describe these beasts. My queasiness at the thought of this thing is 100% validated.
Domomojo

So that’s what was chewing on Roland’s hand.
Wareq

Oo-oo-oo-ooh… giant arachnids make me go all Ron Weasley.
Yep

Delicious with melted butter.
Chinese Jet Pilot

It’s straight out of the infamous spider pit scene that was cut out of the original King Kong.
waugsqueke

Maybe this is the Cloverfield monster.
Bobdotcom

All I can think of is the scorpion scene from one of those Golan-Globus movies – can’t remember if it was one of the Sinbad movies or Clash of the Titans (I’m leaning towards the latter) where the giant stop-motion scorpions attack the puny humans.
Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator

What Yep said. It looks like a giant lobster tail.
Ralph Giles

Sea Scorpions and regular scorpions aren’t closely related. Say Eurypterid if you want to be zoo-cool.
EH

I’m just glad to find out there’s a such thing as a “sea scorpion.”
patricio

I for one welcome our new scorpion overlords.
iain010100

Darn. I just completed my training in dinosaur combat.
Scixual

I was beginning to think all horror paleontology came from New Zealand!

nts: write a (cc) short story about all various paleontological critters coming back.
AndrW

DID-A-CHIK, DAT-A-CHUM.
Beanolini

It’s clearly Eldrad, back from the dead again:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/classic/episodeguide/handoffear/detail.shtml
Joerg

That “PrÃ¼m”, or “Pruem”, if you’re Umlaut-challenged (It’s really no problem to write ue instead of Ã¼, see I use it in my name as well). My school town, btw.