Palaeoecology: a gigantic fossil arthropod trackway.
A unique, complex trackway has been discovered in Scotland: it was made roughly 330 million years ago by a huge, six-legged water scorpion that was about 1.6 m long and a metre wide. To my knowledge, this is not only the largest terrestrial trackway of a walking arthropod to be found so far, but is also the first record of locomotion on land for a species of Hibbertopterus (Eurypterida). This evidence of lumbering movement indicates that these giant arthropods, now extinct, could survive out of water at a time when the earliest tetrapods were making their transition to the land.
Whyte
Martin A
MA
Department of Geography, University of Sheffield, Brookhill, Sheffield S10 2TN, UK. m.a.whyte@sheffield.ac.uk
D000818:Animals; D001181:Arthropods / Q000502:physiology*; D004777:Environment; D005121:Extremities / Q000502:physiology; D005580:Fossils; D005684:Gait / Q000502:physiology; D049690:History, Ancient; D009043:Motor Activity / Q000502:physiology*; D012606:Scotland