Man Sized Sea Scorpion Fossil Found 216
hereisnowhy writes "A giant fossilized claw discovered in Germany belonged to an ancient sea scorpion that was much bigger than the average man, an international team of geologists and archaeologists reported Tuesday. In a report in the Royal Society's journal Biology Letters, the team said the claw indicates that sea scorpion Jaekelopterus rhenania was almost 2.5 meters long, making it the largest arthropod — an animal with a segmented body, jointed limbs and a hard exoskeleton — ever found. In the report, the authors said the scorpion exceeds previous size records for arthropods by almost half a meter."
Amazing (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Amazing (Score:5, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Dubious extrapolation (Score:4, Interesting)
Take a look, for example, at this picture [sc.gov] of a Fiddler crab, or even this picture [foodreference.com] of a stone crab, and then scale the "computer-generated visualization" in the article to that claw to body size, and you'll estimate that the guy is, maybe, half a meter long.
Re:Amazing (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyone past that height currently either has back problems, or keeps themselves in decent shape so that their mucles can take some of the load in moderate high-stress situations, like falling over when you trip.
Re:Dubious extrapolation (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Amazing (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Man Sized? (Score:2, Interesting)